


Yhprum's Law

by andchaos



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Homophobic Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, canon-typical Why Is Dennis Like That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-08-22 22:47:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 123,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16606877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Mac got the chance to come out in high school, and he moved away to somewhere more gay-friendly after graduation and lost touch with the rest of the gang. In his absence, the gang moved on. Without Mac around to help her avoid it, Dee got out-voted and capitulated to the gay bar scheme, and Dennis stayed playing the flirty bartender to the guys around there. Mac's back in town after ten years, but when he hears about the hottest gay bar in the city, he really doesn't expect to run into all his super-straight, super-shitty, voted-least-likely-to-succeed friends, and hereallydoesn't think they'll be running the place.





	1. leftover breakfast cereal

**Author's Note:**

> Yhprum's Law: _philosophical principle._  
>  1\. Simple formula stating, "Everything that can work, will work."  
> 2\. Richard Zeckhauser, Harvard professor: "Sometimes systems that should not work, work nevertheless."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to [lexi](https://glirsty.tumblr.com/) for fleshing out some ideas with me, but also fuck you for convincing me to run with this instead of, i don't know, doing anything else. love u

The news came filtered down the usual channels: Somebody official told his mom, and she held onto it for four days until spilling it to Charlie’s mother over eight glasses of cherry wine, and Charlie told six rats he found in his basement, and then waited another three hours before finally relaying it to Mac.

Mac found Dennis sitting sprawled on the lawn during fourth period lunch, laughing about something with Dee. Charlie was lying nearby, smoking a cigarette and apparently completely ignoring them as he looked up at the clear sky, probably getting a really good eyeful of the bright, mid-October sun. Dennis looked up when Mac crossed the greens toward them, but Dee just went about eating her sandwich and pulling up bits of grass to sprinkle down on Charlie’s bare legs while he got more and more irritated shaking it off.

“Hey, bro,” said Dennis. He circled his fork around in his Tupperware of pesto and penne. “What’s up?”

Mac dropped his backpack off his shoulder onto the grass and folded himself next to Dennis on the lawn. He squinted, half from the sunlight and half just because it was taking his brain awhile to get the words down to his mouth; he still hadn’t fully processed what was going on. Dennis just stared.

“My dad went to prison last week,” Mac said at last. He was still staring blankly ahead.

Although it felt like something monumental to him, Dennis just arched an eyebrow and then snorted, and went back to his noodles. Mac finally reanimated so he could glare at him.

“That’s it?” he demanded.

“Dude, so what?”

“So _what_?”

“Yeah, Mac,” said Dee, looking up from bothering Charlie. “Your dad goes to prison, like, every other month.”

“No he doesn’t!”

“Bro, he just got released, like, six weeks ago,” said Charlie, pushing himself up to lean back on his hands. Mac glared at him.

“I’m not speaking to you,” he said, jabbing a finger at him. “You waited a whole day to tell me after you first found out.”

“I figured you knew!” said Charlie. “Why the hell would I think your mom didn’t tell you that?”

“Because it’s old news, Charlie,” said Dennis, laughing a little. “Like we said, he gets locked up all the time.”

“This is _different_ ,” said Mac. “This isn’t some stupid drug offense, man! They got him convicted of armed robbery and assault. Guys, he’s going away for at least ten years. Maybe fifteen to twenty. He’s got priors.”

The others all looked at each other, silence winning out. Something more serious had settled over all of their faces.

“Yeah,” said Mac, nodding savagely. “Uh huh. How’s that for your big fucking deal?”

“Shit,” said Charlie at last. He held his cigarette out toward him, butt first. “Sorry, bro. You want this? It’ll calm your nerves.”

Mac snatched it from him, mumbling thanks as he put it between his lips. Dennis and Dee snuck glances at each other. Nobody said anything, though, and soon they all wandered back into their own conversations. Dennis and Dee were arguing over the right answer to their math homework while Charlie tried and failed to weave together dandelion stems, occasionally breaking in to ask them to send him a picture of their homework later so he could copy their answers. Mac finished Charlie’s cigarette and then just sat there with them, picking at the dirt between his crossed legs and tuning them out until the bell rang.

They gathered their things and headed back toward the building. Halfway across the lawn, Dennis fell back from the other three to join Mac a couple steps behind. He slung an arm around his shoulders, jostling him a little.

“Hey, man,” he said. His tone wasn’t exactly nice but it was a little gentler than usual, admittedly. “Do you want to sleep at our place tonight?”

Mac looked up at him, biting his lip. Dennis just looked back for a long time, and Mac nodded.

 

Life was strange, without his father. It wasn’t incredibly different in some ways — Luther had never been especially present before, either always in jail or on his way to jail or working up something with his buddies that would surely send him to jail by the end of the day. But in other ways it was unmistakable the way things had changed: without the threat of his father looming over him, knowing he would be back soon, things were easier.

Home always got tense when Luther was gone, his mother having to pick up more shifts at work. She got surlier with Mac than usual when they did cross paths, and she spoke less, and she smoked a lot more cigarettes. Some days she forgot to feed him, or maybe just didn’t really feel like it; Mac went to Charlie’s those days, and Charlie bitched and whined at his mom to leave them alone, but Mac liked the way she fussed over him and brought them cheese plates and even how she mussed at his hair trying to stop it from lying so flat. Too much attention was better than none, in his opinion.

But now that Luther was gone, _gone_ gone, no chance of coming back soon, it was also easier. They slipped back into their usual routine much faster than normal, and for the first time Mac had some room to look around without thinking about how his feet were going to get swept out from under him when Luther came back soon.

 

It was in the little things.

They were sprawled on Mac’s couch in the living room, and Dennis was happily smoking his way through all of Mac’s weed.

“We should throw a party,” said Dennis. “We should throw a party every weekend. Your mom’s not gonna give a shit.”

“Why do you want to throw a party so bad?” Mac demanded, reaching for the joint.

Dennis tried to hold it away from him but Mac won the scuffle in the end, greedily pulling Dennis’s arm toward him. Dennis wouldn’t completely relinquish the weed but he let Mac pull his hand in close enough that Mac could smoke it right out from between his fingers. Mac was focused on the joint, but when he looked up, Dennis was watching him with a soft, unreadable expression.

Normally there were more people around. Usually when his mom was at work, his dad was at home, or the other way around. Mac could practically hear their voices in his head: _What the shit are you doing, Mac? Are you a fag for your friend, now? Oh no? Then why are you sitting so close to him like that, kid? Looks like some homo shit to me. How do you think that’s making me feel, having to look at it?_

But there was nobody home, because his mom was at work and no one else lived there. Mac pulled away coughing anyway, putting some distance between them.

“We need to throw a party because it’s no fun doing coke just to sit around in your basement playing Mario all day,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. He slotted the joint back between his lips.

“Oh, we’re doing coke now?” said Mac. Dennis just raised his eyebrows at him. “And where the fuck are you getting coke, Dennis? You don’t know any dealers, except me. And I don’t remember offering to sell.”

“Your dad’s stash,” said Dennis around another hit. He shrugged.

With his arms slung out along the back of the couch like that, he looked completely at ease, like he wasn’t pulling everything Mac had into his own lap and lapping it up as though it belonged to him unquestionably. Mac just stared.

“What the hell are you talking about, bro?” Mac demanded. “We can’t go through my dad’s shit, he’ll get mad. He’ll kick your ass, and mine—”

“Uh, how exactly is he going to do that?” Dennis asked. “See, because last I remember, he was in prison. So it’s gonna be a little hard to kick anybody’s ass from behind bars.”

Mac said nothing. He scowled at the carpet instead.

“Exactly,” said Dennis, clapping his hand on Mac’s shoulder. But he didn’t move it after, just propped his elbow there and used that hand to dangle the joint close to his face so he didn’t have to move too much to smoke from it. Mac should have shaken him off but he didn’t. He could feel him, too much heat through his t-shirt. “So, party? Is your mom home Friday or Saturday?”

“Just Friday,” he said mechanically. “She’s got a graveyard shift Saturday.”

“Perfect! Saturday night, party at Mac’s place. I’ll put the news out tomorrow.”

Dennis leaned to grab the remote for the TV, mercifully removing his arm from Mac’s shoulder. Mac twisted his hands together and said nothing while Dennis flipped through channels before settling on Baywatch. He wanted to fight more about the party but now he was wondering if he’d be able to get away with even more than usual now that nobody was home.

Sometimes Dennis let him lay down if he was tired, while they watched a movie late at night at the Reynolds’s place. He could put his head on his lap if they were sharing the small couch. Mac wouldn’t have tried it normally at his own house, but nobody was here to say anything if he did. Mac thought about doing that now, in the middle of his open living room at just past two in the afternoon.

Ultimately Mac sat there on his side of the couch, upright and unmoving, while Dennis whistled at C.J. and Caroline, Mac found himself equally watching Hasselhoff act instead. Just because he was jacked, he reasoned, and he probably had a totally sweet workout routine.

But the thing was, no one asked him why he didn’t join in with Dennis panting for the girls. And the longer they sat there watching — for two hours, for three — he found himself tuning Dennis out more and more. And nobody asked him about it at all.

 

The party was loud. This was now the sixth party Mac had had since Dennis had first proposed the idea, because he still hadn’t been able to find his stash, and Dennis said that they should use it as a party house anyway even if they couldn’t get high there. And this party was just as loud and irritating as the five before.

Mac was pretty much aware that everyone was just there because it was an empty house, and half of them seemed not to have any idea who he was and the other half seemed downright unhappy to see him.

“I thought Dennis said you were bringing drugs,” Dee complained. She was sitting with her feet propped on Mac’s coffee table, sipping rum and coke that was disproportionately strong out of a solo cup. “What happened to your drugs, Mac? You never deliver on the drugs!”

“And who said you could have drugs, Dee?” Mac snapped. “I don’t remember even inviting you! Why are you here?”

Dee pouted a little. “Don’t be like that. Dennis and Charlie were invited.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Hosting sucked. Hosting was mildly stressful at best and a pounding headache at worst. Mac was five seconds from flipping the lights on and shouting for everyone to get out of his house when Dennis appeared like straight out of a dream. He pushed a solo cup into Mac’s hand and his own came to rest on the back of Mac’s neck, massaging gently.

“Drink this,” Dennis coaxed. Even his voice was soothing, almost as comforting as his fingers. “Get drunk, stop flipping out. I’ll take charge of things, make sure nobody busts up your place too bad.”

Mac said nothing. He sipped at the drink, wrinkling his nose a little; overpouring the liquor into a mix seemed to be a hereditary gene, because the punch Dennis had pushed on him was very strong on the vodka. Mac pulled on it anyway, leaning into Dennis’s side, and his touch on his neck. Dennis rubbed at him for another few seconds before ruffling up the back of his hair and pulling away.

“Your only job is to get very drunk and go find your dad’s coke,” Dennis reminded him. “Okay, Mac? Hosting is my job. Finding his stash is yours.”

Mac grumbled something into another sip. Dennis seemed to take it as an affirmative, because he clapped his hands together.

“Great,” he said. “Dee, come with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I didn’t ask,” he said testily, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Dee muttered expletives as she heaved herself off the couch and went after him.

Mac stood there when they were gone, breathing deeply for a minute. Someone bumped into his arm, making his drink slosh, and Mac whirled around but they were already gone.

“Fucking Christ,” he muttered. He wiped forlornly at the punch on his shirt. “Goddamn it.”

With a sigh, he chugged back the rest of the drink, set the empty cup down on the table, and went upstairs to start searching for his dad’s stash.

Mac had slung drugs a few times for Luther in exchange for a little pocket money and even less praise. Still, he only knew about the usual places around the house that he’d kept the little baggies of pills and a little bit of weed. The good stuff was hidden away God knows where, probably because Luther had been concerned about Mac swiping it. All things considered, it was a fair assumption.

He checked the toilet tank just in case, but there was just the usual handful of Xanax and about an ounce of weed. Mac shoved it all down his pants to hide away in his room before someone tried to upper decker the house just to be a dick and found the drugs instead.

He left the bathroom just as a girl raced in, covering her mouth. Mac pressed himself to the opposite wall to make room for her, and then followed the unmistakable sounds and smells of her puking up tequila. Gagging a little at the noise, Mac retreated down the hall away from her.

His room was at the end; he picked at his shirt, pulling the wet punch stain away from his skin. He should probably change — but when he tried the door, it was locked. Sometimes the knob just stuck; Mac hit it hard with his shoulder, but it still didn’t budge. He pounded his fist on the door.

“Hey! This is my room. No banging in here,” he called. “Use my parents’ room if you’ve gotta hook up. Do you guys hear me? That’s my bed, I don’t want you humping each other in my—”

The door swung open. A boy that Mac vaguely recognized from his U.S. History class — Mac didn’t go very often, so it was difficult to recall — was standing there, belt off and pants undone. Mac stared at his bare chest for a little longer than necessary.

“Don’t cockblock me, man,” the boy hissed, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s _Trina Malkovich_! Do you know how many guys would kill to get her in bed?”

Mac glanced at the girl. She was pretty, sure, but still—

“I don’t want you guys banging in my bed,” Mac said again flatly.

“The other room is already occupied,” the kid said. “Now leave us alone.”

“But this is my house!” Mac protested, but the boy had already slammed the door shut. Mac heard the lock click shut again; he jiggled the doorknob, but it didn’t budge. “Oh, come on. Really? …God _damn_ it.”

His parents’ room was locked, too, just like the guy had said. He went back downstairs to find Dennis — he was starting to feel the drink he’d had a little, and he was feeling antsy and unhappy, and he remembered that seeing Dennis had made him feel better before. It wasn’t an impulse he thought over very hard before following after it.

Dennis was, at the moment that Mac found him, shoving some stumblingly drunk kid out the door so aggressively that he fell hard down the front steps, scraping up his hands and knees on the pavement outside. The kid stood up fast, already whirling around to cuss him out, and Dennis just sneered and flipped him off and slammed the door. When he turned back around, Mac was leaning on the wall nearby, arms crossed.

Dennis swept a hand through some unruly curls at his forehead, exhaling hard. He caught sight of Mac and plastered on a very unconvincing smile.

“Come on, buddy,” he said, slinging an arm over Mac’s shoulders. “You don’t look like you listened to what I said about having fun.”

Mac grumbled about the kid having sex in his bed; Dennis shushed him and started leading him away through the house.

“I got something that will make you feel better. You trust me?” Dennis asked. The answer was probably very much _no_ , but Mac nodded anyway. Dennis said, “Good. Through the back door we go.”

He guided Mac out with him, and soon as they were outside, Dennis retracted the arm around Mac and starting digging around in his pocket. He unearthed a fat joint after a moment, and held it up triumphantly in the porch light. Mac frowned a little.

“Did you roll that with my weed?”

“Can you stop thinking so goddamn loud, and help me smoke this bitch?” Dennis asked crossly.

Mac sighed and got the lighter out of his pocket.

They sat on the lawn trading the joint back and forth. They were only out there alone for a few passes before they had amassed a small gathering around them — the usual types that drift away from the party like they’re magnetized to the smell of weed before it even hits the air. A few kids had finagled their way into bumming hits off of Mac and Dennis’s joint, but most of them had brought their own already-filled pieces or were trading cigarettes, laughing and ashing between their crossed legs.

Mac tapped Dennis on the shoulder. Dennis barely paused in his half-incoherent conversation with Bill Ponderosa to mumble, “Thanks,” and take the joint Mac was offering. Mac frowned, watching Dennis turn back to Bill and continue with what he’d been saying with barely a hiccup.

Mac liked looking at Dennis, in a way he didn’t quite know how to verbalize. He liked looking at Dennis the same way he liked looking at the shirtless kid from U.S. History, and the male lifeguards on Baywatch. He liked the sharp cut of Dennis’s jaw; and the slim, pretty smoothness of his chest and thighs; and the soft, tousled curls that spilled off his head in a way that had Mac tempted to thread a finger through one and pull, just to watch it bounce back. Mac liked soccer because sometimes the athletes poured water over their heads and their shirts stuck to their chests, and when sex scenes came on in movies and the girls didn’t get too much screen time, and when he shared a bed with Charlie or Dennis and they woke up having curled together in the night.

Mac watched Dennis take a long hit from the joint and he still wasn’t looking at him. Mac watched the pale line of Dennis’s throat bob as he breathed the smoke into his lungs and slowly breathed it out. Mac watched Dennis turn a little towards him and smile.

“Here.”

Dennis passed him the joint back; Mac took it with numb fingers. Dennis just watched him as he took a long drag himself. Bill, on Dennis’s other side, was already talking to the girl next to him and fully disengaged from whatever conversation he had just been having with Dennis. The boy to Mac’s right was chugging out of a beer bong, amidst loud cheers.

There was nobody at Mac’s house above the age of twenty-five because his dad was in jail, and his mom was working. No one supervised him half the time anymore, and not in the usual way that he got ignored by his parents even while sitting in the same room, but because there was flatly just no one _around_. And in that absence, Mac watched Baywatch from where he was lying in Dennis’s lap, and nobody called him any names, and nobody cared.

Mac took the joint out of his mouth.

“Dennis, dude, I think I’m gay.”

For a moment, everything was still. Saying the words aloud made the world briefly tunnel around him, and for a split-second Mac felt dead sober. But the laughter all around him filtered back in all at once, and Mac flushed red despite the slight chill to the late-autumn, early-winter air. Nobody was listening. Dennis blinked and his face was blank.

“Yeah,” he said after a pause, with a little shrug of one shoulder. “I know.”

Mac stared at him. “You _know_?”

“Yeah,” Dennis repeated, easy. “I’ve always known. We all have.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I mean, it’s not like we sit around discussing it or anything,” Dennis said with a little laugh. “On account of not giving a shit, of course.”

“Well, I…” Mac shook his head a little. “I don’t give a shit if you know. What? This isn’t about how you—”

“We don’t care or anything,” said Dennis, voice lilting a little. He leaned back on his hands, lounging. His eyes were so fucking red. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“I don’t care if you don’t care,” Mac said after a little pause. “And it… _does_ change things.”

Mac stared at him more. Dennis arched an eyebrow delicately, keeping eye contact; very slowly, he brought the joint up to his mouth and kept his eyes on Mac’s the whole time that he was breathing it in.

“Okay,” he said at last, all that smoke billowing out of his mouth at once when he spoke. “Then shit’s different and it matters, I guess. What do you want me to say, man?”

Dennis was smiling loosely. Mac just looked at him for a moment longer. At last, he shook his head a little and reached out for the weed. His fingertips brushed Dennis’s knuckles when he unwedged it from his hand. Even though he looked away, he could feel Dennis’s eyes on his profile when he finished off the joint and stubbed the roach out aggressively into the dirt beside his knee. He tossed the end out into the dark, not caring where it landed. When he looked up, Dennis had already dug his pack of smokes out from his back pocket and was sparking up with the lighter from before.

Mac watched his long, pretty fingers wrapped loosely around his cigarette. The angles of Dennis’s jaw and the set of his mouth when he breathed out some really shitty rings.

Dennis grinned at him and reached out, cigarette dangling loosely from his hand, to offer it to Mac. Mac leaned in and wrapped his lips around the filter while Dennis was still holding it, and his mouth brushed Dennis’s fingers right as he looked up and met his eye. Dennis’s gaze was soft, and steady. Mac’s eyes flicked back down to the grass and he pulled away, coughing a little as some of the smoke trickled back into his lungs.

Dennis rubbed his back, laughing at him all through it.

“Let me get you another beer for that throat,” he said.

He got up and disappeared before Mac could say yes or no either way; it didn’t matter. He was still coughing, not that hard but enough that talking was impossible. He looked back to watch Dennis slink away. His mind was blank with weed and drinking, and his skin was buzzing. After a second, Mac smiled faintly and reached to pick at the grass by his ankles.

A minute later he was startled by Dennis folding himself back down, thrusting a beer bottle into his hands, and roping him and the drunk kid on Mac’s other side into a debate about which drinking game they should all go play. Mac said, “Somebody put on Thunderstruck!” and Dennis caught his eye and smiled.

 

Dennis and Dee were in the convenience store trying to steal as much candy as they could to smuggle into the movies later. Mac and Charlie sat on the hood of the car in the parking lot, waiting for them.

“What are you gonna do now?” Charlie asked. “We graduated, you know? Dennis and Dee are gonna go off to college, but…I was thinking of getting a job down at the dump or something for a while. Mom says I don’t have to but I can’t stay cooped up in the house anymore with her. It’s been two months and she’s already driving me crazy. I could see if there are any openings for you down there, too.”

Mac scuffed the toe of his shoe against the pavement.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“What’s not to know?” Charlie said, laughing. “You need to do something. Your mom’s been grunting at you to get out of the house, too, you know it.”

“I’ve been thinking, man,” he said after a moment. Charlie looked at him blankly and Mac bit his lip, looking away. Haltingly, he said, “You remember in eighth grade, when Jesse Sikes was beating the shit out of you for stealing his lunch money and then I jumped in to save you?”

“I don’t think you’re remembering that right, bro,” said Charlie, pointing at him. “I feel like he was beating _you_ up for stealing his money.”

“No, because I remember, you were definitely involved—”

“Yeah, but I think I just happened to, like, be standing there.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point, dude!”

“Right, right.” Charlie glanced at him. “Uh, what _is_ the point?”

“The point is, remember — after I jumped in to save you, he said, ‘What’s the matter? You need your fag boyfriend to fight your battles for you?’ And you said—”

“And then _you_ said that if you had a boyfriend he’d be six feet tall and strong as a quarterback. And that you weren’t gay,” Charlie said, nodding. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well — I am gay.”

“I know that too,” Charlie said slowly. “I was there at that party when you blacked out and started yelling about wanting to choke on a dick.”

He was now staring at Mac like he was something particularly interesting that he’d found while scouring the sewer. Mac cleared his throat hastily and moved on.

“The thing is, Charlie, I’m…Things haven’t really _changed_. Just last week, I got called a fairy just for bringing up Tom Brady.”

“You were being really gay about it,” Charlie said, pointing at him. “To be fair.”

“That’s not the point,” Mac said, frustrated. Whether or not he wanted Tom Brady to rail him into oblivion was not the point at all. “The point is that I’m sick of hearing that kind of thing.”

“Mac, you’re always going to hear that kind of thing. People are shitty, yeah, but they’re shitty everywhere. What are you—”

“Not everywhere,” Mac said quickly. Charlie stared at him for a long moment, and Mac looked back. Then he swallowed and looked away. He said, “There’s some places where…where it’s okay to be gay. Or at least okayer. There’s places in New York, and San Francisco is—”

“You want to move to _California_?” Charlie said. His brow was pulled together, his mouth hanging open. “Mac, that’s all the way across the country.”

Mac opened his mouth to refute this, but then the convenience store door opened and Dennis and Dee came out, holding a single pack of bubblegum.

“Hey guys,” said Dee. “Check us out!”

She unzipped one of her jacket pockets to flash the stash of candy inside. Mac laughed, reaching to high-five her. Dennis grabbed her arm.

“Put it _away_ ,” he said furiously. “You stupid bitch. Don’t brag about stealing _right_ in front of the store you stole it from. God.”

“Get off me,” Dee snapped, pulling her arm back.

She tossed Mac a Snickers bar as he hopped off the hood of the car. The movie theatre was just a few blocks over; they could walk.

“What were you guys talking about?” Dennis asked, biting into a Twizzler.

“What?” said Mac.

“You looked like you were fighting.”

“Oh, nothing,” said Charlie, pulling a face. “Mac was just telling me about how, as soon as you guys fuck off to Penn, he’s going to fuck off _all the way to California_.”

Dennis and Dee stopped walking; Mac nearly walked right into Dee, and he shoved her hard in the back. She turned around and shoved him back so he nearly slipped off the curb.

“What?” Dennis said sharply. “You’re joking. Mac, tell me he’s telling a very bad joke?”

“I don’t want to move across the country!” Mac said loudly. “You guys, I swear.”

Charlie looked a little less angry, but not any happier.

“So what were you saying then?” he asked. “With all that ‘not everywhere hates gays!’ rant and how tired you are of hearing homophobic shit?”

“I’m saying that I want to move…somewhere,” Mac said. His attention flicked over Charlie and he caught on Dennis, right over his shoulder. Dennis looked so mad he was slowly turning red. He was shaking minutely. “I don’t know. I was thinking…I don’t really have a whole lot keeping me here, you know? I might pack a bag and just…go around for a while. See what places I like, if they’re really okay with me like they’re supposed to be. See what fits.”

None of them said anything for a long time.

Charlie’s gaze was on his feet, stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk. Dee seemed entirely checked out of the conversation, gnawing on a Kit Kat bar. Dennis seemed stuck firmly in the incoherent phase of anger, although Mac was well aware that that was only a hairpin trigger away from devolving into an all-out screaming fit. After a while Mac got tired of waiting for any of them to say something and looked away, squinting out across the street instead. There seemed to be people everywhere: Moms and dads and kids, strolling along down the sidewalk; boyfriends holding hands with girlfriends, laughing about something with their heads ducked close; men and women passing together in cars. Girls and boys, boys and girls. Mac was tired of never seeing himself anywhere, and knowing he couldn’t be like these strangers even if he found a guy like himself somewhere in this oppressive, closeted desert.

“So you were just going to ditch us?” Dennis demanded at last. “Were you even going to tell us?”

“I’m telling you now,” Mac said sharply, turning to look at him again.

“No you aren’t,” Dennis snapped. “Charlie is!”

“Same thing! We’re talking about it, aren’t we?” said Mac, growing angrier. “Besides, nothing’s set in stone.”

“Really? Because you seem pretty fucking sure.”

“What do you want from me?” Mac demanded loudly, throwing his hands in the air. Dennis stopped walking again to glare at him. “Dennis, I’m fucking seventeen and I’ve already been called the f-slur too many times to fit on one hand! I’m sick of it! I’m sick of not knowing any other gay guys. I’m sick of knowing that even if I found someone, we couldn’t hang out in public together. I’m fucking sick! Maybe nowhere’s perfect, but somewhere’s gotta be better.”

“You don’t know that!”

“You’re right, I don’t!” Mac shouted. “But what the fuck else am I supposed to do? When else am I gonna get a chance like this, Den? I just graduated, I’m looking for a job and a place to live anyway. If I don’t do it now, I don’t know if I _ever_ will. You’re leaving! What the fuck is the difference?”

“The difference is that I’ll be _back_ ,” Dennis said. “And I’m just on the other side of Philly—”

“Yeah, but back for how long?” Mac demanded. “What happens after college? I wait around four years ‘til you graduate, and then you immediately go off to vet school somewhere else, or move somewhere with better prospects for a job?”

“You can’t know that yet!” said Dennis. “Things change. Four years is such a long time—”

“Exactly, way too long just to hang around and find out if you happen to stay. And even if you do, what am I doing in that scenario? What’s the difference for me?”

“I’ll be there!” said Dennis. “That makes a fucking difference—”

“So I can spend my whole life with my guard up, either getting fired from every job I apply for or staying closeted forever, just ‘cause you’re here? That doesn’t _fix_ anything, Dennis!”

“We can do something together!”

“That doesn’t fit into your fucking life plan and we both know it,” said Mac. “You’re gonna be a vet, Dee’s gonna — well, I don’t know, probably whore around the rest of her life—”

“Hey,” she said, focusing on the conversation for the first time just to glare at him, both of her arms crossed.

“—and I’ll be here with Charlie working at the fucking dump,” Mac finished. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course it’s not!” said Dennis. “We can figure something out, though, bro! We can get a place together—”

“I’ve known you since I was five, dude,” Charlie said quietly, and they stopped yelling at each other to look over at him. He hadn’t spoken all this time and now it seemed like he was holding in something very, very painful. Mac hadn’t seen Charlie cry since middle school but this didn’t sound like the precursor to it anyway; still, there was something tightly wound up in his voice, a coiled spring ready to burst out into something. He took a deep breath and flicked a glance up to meet Mac’s eye. Shakily, he asked, “What the fuck am I gonna do without you?”

Mac let out a big breath. He swayed a little on his feet.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. Charlie exhaled and looked back at the ground. Mac said, in a forced upbeat tone, “But I’m not leaving yet. We got time.”

They looked at each other. Then Mac laughed, a little helplessly. It wasn’t good or nice but Charlie gave him a wobbly little smile in return, and Mac closed his eyes for a moment.

“Yeah. Plenty of time,” he murmured.

He reached out, and Charlie shuffled a little closer to him, snuggling close underneath his arm. Mac tilted his cheek to the top of Charlie’s head. He sighed. They stood there for a long moment, pressed together, not saying anything. Mac quietly breathed it all in, wanting something he would be able to lean on later when he was out in the world alone, and knowing that it couldn’t last forever.

“Great,” Dennis said tersely from beside them. Mac opened his eyes and let Charlie go, hastily stepping back. “Can we go now before we miss our movie that me and Dee so smoothly stole candy for?”

Charlie nodded jerkily. Mac said nothing, but he started walking with them.

As they made their way down the street, Dennis didn’t say anything to him. But he walked just a little closer, and their arms brushed every couple of steps.

 

Mac left in the middle of September. It took him that long to pack all of his things and save a little money for the road, plus to cut a deal with one of his dad’s old connects — all the rest of his stash in exchange for an old, rundown Jeep he had that was collecting more dust than miles. Mac still didn’t know where the drugs were hidden despite turning the house upside down, but the guy told him there should be a key on his dad’s ring next to his house and car keys, and that should open a lock box at his buddy’s junkyard. The guy traded the key for the Jeep around back.

The only person who came to see him off was Charlie, mostly just because he was already at the McDonalds’ smoking weed when Mac decided to leave.

“Give me a ride across town?” Charlie asked.

“Jump in,” said Mac.

Charlie swung himself into the passenger seat, Mac’s backpack at the footwell. Mac gunned the ignition. They both really, really liked the Jeep.

He dropped Charlie off near the strip with their favorite smoothie shop, right next to a sandwich joint they frequented about once a week. For a moment when they pulled over, they just sat there in silence. Mac kept his hand tight on the gearshift, waiting. At last he turned toward Charlie.

“Listen—”

 _Tap, tap_ on the window. Mac looked over. A woman in a yellow vest was knocking a knuckle against the glass.

“Excuse me!” she called through the window. “You can’t park here.”

“I’m just dropping him off,” yelled Mac. “I don’t know when I’ll see him again. Give us a second!”

She said something else, gesturing down the road. Mac turned back to Charlie. They looked at each other for a moment.

“Call me,” said Charlie, letting out a breath.

Mac’s brow furrowed. “I haven’t even got on the road yet.”

“I didn’t mean now,” he said. He waved his hand in the air. “I just meant in general. Just…you know. Don’t lose touch, man.”

Mac cracked a little smile.

“Dude,” he laughed. “I’ll be sending postcards every city I hit. Dennis will fly out to kick my ass if I don’t.”

“You got that right,” said Charlie.

“Besides,” said Mac, smile softening a little. “Like you said, we’ve known each other since we were five. You don’t give up something like that for some distance and a little tail, bro.”

Mac held his hand out. Charlie slapped it in a low five that they turned into a quiet grasping of hands.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know, dude. Just…”

“What?”

“Excuse me!” The woman was back knocking insistently on the glass. “You can’t park your car here, sir!”

Mac cranked it down to half-mast. “Look, lady,” he said tersely. “I’m skipping town for who knows how long and I’m trying to say goodbye to this guy, who’s been my best friend since we were kids. Could you give me five _fucking_ minutes, please?”

“Sir, this is a no parking zone. I’m going to have to give you a t—”

Mac cranked the window back up. When he turned around, Charlie was laughing.

“Like I was saying,” he said, sobering a little. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Mac.”

Mac looked at him for a long moment. He grabbed Charlie’s hand again and pulled him in for a one-sided hug, as much as they could manage it over the center console. Charlie patted his back twice, then pulled away.

“See you around, Mac,” he said.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

With one last, bracing look, Charlie opened the door and climbed out. He looked back for a long moment before slamming it shut.

“See you around, buddy,” Mac said softly.

He waited until Charlie disappeared inside the smoothie shop. Then with a little exhale, he shifted back into drive and reversed out onto the street. The lady in the yellow vest waved at him with pursed lips, and Mac made sure to flip her off as he drove away.

 

Mac called when he found cell service on his exceptionally shitty flip phone, or else on the occasional payphone when one happened to stand outside his motels. He bought postcards in duplicates everywhere he went — one to send to his mother, addressed to her and Dad in the hopes she would keep them to show him when he got out, or maybe bring them to visit him in prison. The other he sent to Charlie, addressed to him and Dennis. Dennis was kind of peeved off about Charlie getting their mail, but Dennis’s dad hated Mac nearly as much as his mom did and Mac was almost positive that Dennis would never see a letter if he sent it to their house.

He sent postcards from Pittsburgh, then up from Buffalo, and from Albany. He lived briefly from motel to motel in Providence, and then moved to Boston, and fleetingly with a nice old guy in Cape Cod who gave Mac a room in exchange for chores around the house that he couldn’t get to anymore, and some help down at the general store that he owned. He got a job in Springfield, then down to New Haven, and further on to Williamsburg. Eventually he ended up in Chelsea, in a shitty, tiny little studio apartment that was still his home. He sent postcards every new place he settled down, and called when he could. Called once a week — once a month — once every couple of months.

He made a few friends in Chelsea, just a cool biker lesbian couple and their gay roommate Tommy. They ended up seeing each other a lot because they were frequenting same bars every night, and after a while they just started hanging out during the day too.

Mac missed his semi-monthly call once, then twice. Then it stopped mattering so much.

Chelsea was nice. Chelsea lasted. Philadelphia was a few years and many, many miles away.

His phone buzzed.

“Sorry, hold on.” Mac held up one finger to the guy he was talking to. “Shit. It’s an unknown number, but they keep calling me.”

“Sure thing,” said the guy. “How about I get you another drink while you take that?”

“I’d like that,” said Mac, shooting him a smile. “Hold up.”

He edged his way out of the busy bar and into the significantly less crowded smoking area. He cupped his hand over his free ear and flipped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“Incoming collect call from Eastern State Correctional Facility. Do you accept the charges?”

A light went off in his head.

“Yeah, I — Of course, yes! I accept the charges. Yeah. Yes, I do.”

The line went briefly dead as hold music played. Then it picked up again. Mac broke in excitedly before he could talk.

“Dad?” he said, voice jumping hopefully. “Dad, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, son. I’m getting out.”

“Really? Oh, Dad, that’s great! What for? I knew you didn’t really try to rob that store, I knew it—”

“No,” Luther said in that slow, grating tone he always had. “No, I did that.”

“Oh.” Mac paused. “Then what are they letting you out for?”

“Getting out a little early for good behavior,” said Luther. “Your mom said you moved up to Maine.”

“It was Massachusetts,” Mac corrected quickly, “and that was a few states ago but — It doesn’t matter! So why are you calling me?”

“I’m having a little coming home party, and—”

“And you want me to come and be the guest of honor?”

“No,” Luther said again. “And stop talking while I’m still in the middle of — Forget it. No, I was hoping you could set me up with a job.”

“Why?” said Mac. “What about all your old friends?”

“My _parole_ officer needs an _official_ place of business to write on my records,” Luther said. “So, listen. Can you think of anywhere that’s hiring?”

“I can look around,” Mac said, nearly tripping over the words. “I can be back in Philadelphia by the end of the week, I’ll look around for something for you—”

“Plan to stick around a while,” said Luther. “My release is set for the end of the month.”

“I’ll be there,” Mac said excitedly.

“Don’t,” said Luther, “I have arrangements—”

“I’ll be there, and I’ll throw you the best party in the history of release parties,” said Mac. “Just you wait and see.”

“Great,” said Luther, drawing out the word. “Goodbye, son.”

“Bye Dad,” he said. “Bye. I love you—”

The line was dead. Mac looked down at his phone quizzically for a second before flipping it shut and stuffing it back into his pocket.

He found Tommy and the girls sitting in a corner booth, doing shots of something green.

“Hey Mac,” said Elle. She slid over one of the shot glasses. “You want a lizard shot?”

“What’s a lizard shot?” Mac asked, but he was already picking it up and tossing it back. “Oh, Christ! That burns.”

“Strong rum,” said Tommy. “What happened with the guy at the bar?”

He jerked his thumb over to him, and Mac looked around. The guy was just sitting there, two beers in front of him while he looked off to the smoking area where Mac had disappeared. Mac looked back at his friends.

“Uh, yeah. Forget that. I gotta talk to you guys.” He paused. “So, my dad called.”

 

Philadelphia hadn’t really changed in the decade since Mac had last seen it. He didn’t know why, but he would have just kind of assumed that something would be different. But eleven years hadn’t made a mark on any of the big buildings, or the rude people, or the same streets. Walking down the road, he could have been back in high school.

His mom had been tolerant of Mac taking over his old room for a while, or at least she hadn’t locked him out in the week or so he’d been back in town.

It turned out that job hunting for a convicted felon that wasn’t even out of jail yet was way harder than Mac had anticipated, and he had a lot of down time as a result. His mom didn’t encourage Mac to leave the house so much as she just grunted at him whenever he was in it. He didn’t remember her being quite so surly in high school, but maybe it was the distance from the memory.

The bars down on Delaware Avenue where loud, and admittedly busy and fun-looking, but they were all straight bars. Even just standing around in a crop top here was making him fidgety and really uncomfortable. Mac paused next to one of the lines, tapping a security guard on the arm.

“Excuse me? Do you know where there are, uh…other bars in the area?”

The guy just stared. “Uh, all up and down this street you have your pick of them, but—”

“I mean like, bars for other people,” said Mac. He gestured vaguely with his hands but it turned out that it was difficult to mime what he was asking. He sighed. “You know. Like, not-straight people?”

“Oh, you want gay bars?” said the guy. “I get you, man. Why didn’t you just say that? Yeah, yeah. There’s a leather bar three streets over if you’re interested. And there’s one that’s been popping lately…Uh, I think it’s called Paddy’s Pub? It used to be an Irish bar but they’ve been doing some good business with our crowd lately.”

He listed off some directions, which disturbingly included a turn down some questionable streets and a shady-seeming alley, and Mac gave him a thumbs up and headed off in the given directions. It was only a ten-minute walk.

The line in front of the building was _insane_. Mac could hear it before he could see it, and when he rounded the corner, the line was brightly decked out and rowdy. A cute, built guy was manning the door, and he smiled a little at Mac as he passed to head to the back of the line.

“Hold up,” said the guy at the front. Mac paused, turning around.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You got ID?”

Mac hastened to flip open his wallet and pull out his license. The guy checked it for a second, then handed it back and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Cool. You can head in.”

“Really? But—” He gestured vaguely at the line, bustling with irritation.

But the security guy just flicked his gaze over Mac real slow and said, “Yeah, trust me. They’ll like you in there.”

“Oh. Okay. Um…Thanks.” Mac started to edge his way around him toward the door. “Thank you.”

“Mhmm.”

Everything about this place was weird. The bar was incredibly dingy, first of all. Despite it being lit up in flashy colors with a pop song blasting so loud that he could feel the bass in his feet, it was clear that this was just a straight bar dressed up gay. The whole place was dirty and not laid out like any gay bar Mac had ever been to.

But still, the clientele was campy or slutty enough that he was sure that the bouncer on Delaware Ave hadn’t lied. Plus, they were playing _Britney_. Mac’s attention strayed over the scene, taking it in. His gaze settled on the bar last.

It took a couple of seconds to focus on the bartender leaning over it. Mac’s mind stuttered over what it was seeing like a record skipping. He wasn’t quite sure _what_ he was looking at, at all; there was something oddly familiar about the guy that he was just not processing, no matter how hard he tried to focus. Tight black shirt, glitter smeared under his eyes, leaning over the counter and laughing and trailing his hand over the beefy forearm of the guy standing on the other side…

Mac blinked. Weakly, he murmured, “…Dennis?”

His brain kickstarted back to life — the record stopped skipping — Mac’s memory of a curly-haired, skinny, teenage Dennis Reynolds coalesced with and reconfigured into this mid-twenties twink with a mop of hair, whose body was coated in glitter and sweat. Mac’s old, straight, high school best friend was grown up and flirting with some beefcake, standing behind the counter of the hottest gay bar in Philadelphia, and Mac had been out as gay for ten years traveling all over the Tristate Area and Mac had left a group of very heterosexual friends and the last he had seen them, Dennis and Dee had ambitions and Charlie dumpster dove for a living and now Dennis was standing here in a bar and — and —

Mac unfroze. Whatever was going on, _fuck_ _this_.

He whirled around and was two steps from pushing back out onto the dark street when he heard, clear and bright and unmistakable, “Mac?”

Mac slowly turned back around. Charlie — ten years older, a little scruffier, but still in his same grubby clothes and with that absolutely unmistakable voice — was paused in the bathroom doorway. When Mac met his eye, Charlie broke out in a grin.

“Hey! Mac!” Charlie said excitedly, striding across the floor toward him. Out of the corner of his eye, Mac saw Dennis look up from the bar. Charlie reached him and immediately pulled Mac into a tight hug. Mac just stood there for a long moment before, numbly, he raised his arms to hug him back. Charlie stepped back after a couple of seconds, still excitedly patting at him. “What are you doing here? Why are you back in Philly? Oh my God, this is so crazy, man!” He glanced behind him at the door. “You’re not leaving, are you? Come in, let’s catch up! Oh, wow.”

And all of Mac’s questions stalled in his throat. He just let Charlie pull on his arm, and he followed dazedly after him as Charlie pulled him deeper into the bar. He readied himself to settle in for a long fucking night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm [lesbianfreyja](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/180179052325) on tumblr and gay mac rules


	2. mirages of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t that funny a story: Charlie quit the dump after Dennis graduated and the two of them started a bar, an idea borne high at Charlie’s house a few months after Dennis’s graduation, when Charlie mumbled that they forked over so much cash on the weekends buying vodka tonics that they might as well pull the same wool over somebody else’s eyes. No one would hire Dee, so they gave her a bartending job. Dee wanted to be an actress; Dee got a crush on the bouncer outside when they met in a theatre class; the bouncer outside was gay, and now here they were.
> 
> “What’s Dennis's deal?” Mac asked lightly.
> 
> Charlie raised his eyebrows. “His deal?”
> 
> “You know,” said Mac. “He’s all…He wasn’t like that, when I left.”
> 
> Charlie shrugged. “He wasn’t?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: uh, heavily glossed over events from 1x01 - i reaaally skimmed over the super racist parts but there's mentions of the general plot here and there
> 
> i've decided that fridays are posting day for this fic! i definitely will not get to it every friday but if i post, it will be a friday. i'll try to keep the updates regular.

Charlie shoved Mac down into a booth and muttered for him to sit tight. At a loss for anything else to do, Mac just stared blankly at his hands. He kept trying to wrap his mind around the absolutely absurd turn that this night had taken but was coming up dead empty. Charlie was back in under a minute anyway, setting a beer down in front of Mac and scrambling to sit down across the booth so he didn’t have long to wonder why he hadn’t bolted when he’d had the chance.

“Wow, Mac, you look great!” said Charlie, leaning over the table toward him. He was still brimming with that special manic energy that he sometimes got, when he was all caught up in his own excitement and a little tipsy and nobody was around to calm him down at all. “How did you hear about us? Did you come tracking us down? I’m sorry, man, I guess this isn’t really what you would have expected our bar to be like.”

Mac hadn’t even known that they _had_ a bar, and he wouldn’t have envisioned that for them at all if he’d thought about it; but it made a little sense, now that he knew. He could see them fitting in in a setting like this. Still, he wouldn’t have pictured their bar to look like this, if he had known — that was true. Mac glanced around the room again. The flashing lights and booming music felt like even more of a sensory overload, knowing that his old friends were the ones behind it. And because it was them, there was definitely a weird scam getting pulled in the LGBT crowd, even though he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The thought made Mac shift a little uncomfortably.

“No,” he said at last, looking back at Charlie.

“So how have you been?” asked Charlie, gulping down so much beer so fast that some of it spilled down onto his shirt. “Last we heard from you, you had holed up in Chelsea.”

“Yeah,” said Mac, nodding a little. “Yeah, I’ve been up in the city. It’s cool up there, man.”

A brief flash of something Mac couldn’t quite identify passed over Charlie’s face; then, abruptly, it was gone. He grinned.

“Was it like you hoped it was gonna be?”

Mac drummed his fingers against the side of his beer bottle, tracing the movements with his eyes. It took a long moment to meet Charlie’s gaze again, but when he did, he smiled a little, softly.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It kind of was. Or — it was as close as I think I’m gonna get.”

Charlie was still grinning, bright and easy. He reached out and knocked the bottom of his beer against Mac’s. “I’m happy for you, man.”

Mac smiled a little and sipped more beer. Some of the knot was unwinding from his chest, and the urge to flee the bar as fast as he possibly could was beginning to dim and fade. He settled back in his seat, considering. Here’s something that was a little different: Back in high school, if Charlie had seen Mac come out in a shirt that showed more of his ribs than it covered, he would have heckled him until he went to change into something a little more shameful. But now he just grinned across at him like he didn’t even notice, and said he looked _great_.

Then again, Mac supposed it was nothing compared to some of the people who came out to the bars. He’d seen young twenty-somethings show up in nothing but bodysuits and — if you were lucky — nipple pasties, so comparatively he was barely risqué. Besides, Charlie didn’t even seem to really notice what he was wearing. He was just grinning at Mac’s face.

“What about you?” said Mac. “What have you been up to? How did you guys get…here?”

“Funny story, actually,” said Charlie excitedly.

It wasn’t that funny a story: He quit the dump after Dennis graduated and the two of them started a bar, an idea borne (or so Charlie said — Mac would guarantee that Dennis had a different spin to this origin tale) high at Charlie’s house a few months after Dennis’s graduation, when Charlie mumbled that they forked over so much cash on the weekends buying vodka tonics that they might as well pull the same wool over somebody else’s eyes. No one would hire Dee because she had a _minor_ felony conviction and was on record for a stint in a mental institution, due to an incident involving her senior year roommate and fire, so they gave her a bartending job. Dee wanted to be an actress; Dee got a crush on the bouncer outside when they met in a theatre class; the bouncer outside was gay, and now here they were.

“She didn’t even want to stay a gay bar, but we’re really making bank,” said Charlie, grinning. “And she got outvoted. She’s just pissed because Dennis is getting, like, so much more attention than her. I mean, who wants _that_? Right?”

He gestured over to the bar. Mac turned — his gaze skipped over Dennis again for half a second before landing on Dee.

She’d gotten a little skinnier since high school, he thought. Maybe she was just missing the big scoliosis brace that used to eat up her whole frame; either way, she was now wearing her hair tied up and a halter that showed off her back, and he was sure that was intentional. He rolled his eyes with how obvious Dee was being, batting her eyes at guys that were completely ignoring her in favor of trying to flag Dennis’s attention down at the end of the bar. Dee was leaning over so far that they could see down her shirt — or would have been able to, if there was anything to see. Mac scoffed a little, and he went to turn back to Charlie. His gaze caught on Dennis again before he did, though, and he slowed turning his head. Dennis was leaning over the end of the bar, facing away from them, and he was bent over so far to pour scotch into somebody’s glass that his whole entire ass was sticking up over the counter. Mac swallowed and looked back at Charlie.

“Right,” said Mac. “Look, are they—”

He paused and looked back down at his hands, wrapped tight around the bottle. Charlie tilted his head.

“What?”

Mac looked up again. He inhaled, hoping to build a little courage with the intake of air, but it didn’t really work. In a rush, he said anyway, “Is all of this just a weird scheme, or—”

“Hey, Charlie.” The pair of them looked up. Dennis was standing there, arching an eyebrow down at Charlie. Then he slowly turned to look at Mac. “Hey, Mac. Long time, no see. What’s your poison?”

Mac blinked at him for a long moment. Dennis’s tank top was so tight it was showing off a little of his hips, and it took Mac a long moment of staring up at his blank face to register that Dennis had just asked him a question.

“What?”

“What do you want to drink,” Dennis said, slower, like he wasn’t sure if Mac had gotten significantly dumber since he’d been gone.

“Oh. Just another bottle,” he said hurriedly. He pushed the beer across the table toward him so he could see the label. “Um. Hi, by the way. It’s good to see you again.”

A bare smile flicked across Dennis’s face.

“You too,” he said. His tone dipped a little, into a warmer, sincerer cadence that Mac dimly recognized from their youth: He meant it. “Cool. Another beer, coming right up.”

Mac’s gaze lingered after him for a long moment before he turned back to Charlie. Charlie was looking at him, all wide eyes. Mac jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“What’s his deal?” he asked lightly.

Charlie raised his eyebrows. “His deal?”

“You know,” said Mac. He waved vaguely in the direction where Dennis had disappeared. “He’s all…He wasn’t like that, when I left.”

Charlie shrugged. “He wasn’t?”

Mac watched him silently for a few seconds, searching for the flicker of his expression that would suggest he was just fucking with him, but Charlie only looked openly back at him. Mac was just about to sigh, to open his mouth, when Dennis reappeared. He gave a tight little smile as he set the new beer in front of Mac, and put another one down in front of Charlie. He stuffed his hands down the front pockets of his jeans.

“Hey, Charlie,” said Dennis, glancing at him, and Charlie paused in uncapping the new beer. “Some guy says the back toilet in the men’s room is stuffed up again. All yours.”

“Ah, damn.” Charlie set his hands down on the table and heaved himself up, and he edged himself out of the booth. “Mac, I’m really glad you’re back. Hey, don’t bolt before I get back, ‘kay? We’re not done catching up.”

He grinned. Mac flipped him a loose smile back, along with a vague promise that he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Charlie disappeared. Mac looked down at the table and sipped idly at his beer, and it was a moment before he realized someone sliding into Charlie’s empty seat. Mac looked up; Dennis grinned at him from across the table.

“Hey,” he said simply. He drummed his fingers against the countertop, but his gaze didn’t slip away from Mac’s. “So. You’re home.” He pulled Charlie’s abandoned full beer closer to himself with his other hand and thumbed loosely at the rim of it. His eyes traced his hand, barely peeking at Mac at all. “How long?”

“What?”

“How long are you here for?” he asked, meeting Mac’s eye steadily, at last. Dennis paused, and he seemed like he was going to ask something else but then he abruptly seemed to decide that he wouldn’t. Mac watched him swallow down whatever he’d been about to say and then tipped his bottle to the side, looking at the liquid slosh around inside instead.

“I don’t know,” Mac said honestly. “I’m organizing this thing for my dad at the end of the month, and that’s — By the way, he’s getting out of prison. That’s why I’m back.”

Dennis sat back, eyes strangely wide. “Oh.”

“I’m helping him get resettled.”

Something shuttered over Dennis’s expression. A little lower, a little more level, he repeated, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Mac nodded idly, looking more at the table than at Dennis. He cast around for something else to say for a long, horrible moment as they plunged suddenly into dark and awful silence. Then the spirit of the conversation he’d just had with Charlie reared up in him all at once, and he reanimated to say, a little too wildly, “So, how have you been? Since I’ve been…Away.”

“I’ve been good,” Dennis said. “Uh, we all have. I mean, working sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” said Mac, and there was a short moment where they looked at each other and laughed. Something in Mac settled down a little. After a second, he gestured around at the bar. “So, you’re really working the gay bar angle, huh? How long has that been going on?”

“A couple months.”

“Yeah? How’s it been working out?”

“Really good,” said Dennis, and there was the guy that Mac knew. Leaning over the table, expression bright. Pumped up on a scheme and the prospect of fucking someone over. It was oddly comforting, like the first flicker of the real Dennis that Mac had seen yet. “Oh, you should see how easy it is to get money out of these guys, dude!”

Mac’s chest felt just a little tighter, but he swallowed around it. All else aside, seeing the gang again had sparked something in him — something like nostalgia — and this was still status quo, evidently. There was something oddly comforting about it, some desire to fall back ten years and be the person he was in high school. He could dimly see an alternate life where he hadn’t left — where he’d been right by the gang’s side when they flipped on the lights that first night into the plan, where he’d high-fived everyone in anticipation of impending profit. It seemed kind of fun.

“I’m not surprised you’re raking it in,” Mac said, snorting a little as he looked around the room, gaze lingering on the guys lying all over each other. Mac turned back to Dennis. “The way you’ve got your hands all over them when they come up to the bar? Plus, I mean, look at you.”

Dennis looked down at his outfit, pleased.

“You think it’s good?” he asked eagerly. “I wasn’t sure. The only bona fide gay opinion we had was Terrell’s and he said it was crap, but I thought — you know—”

“You might actually be the hottest person in here,” Mac said earnestly, nodding, “and that’s saying something.”

Dennis raised an eyebrow as he cast a glance around the room at the dressed-down clientele, looking a little amused, a little superior. Mac _wasn’t_ the person he’d been in high school but looking at Dennis was sending up shadows of the same pleasant sparks that it used to. Mac’s eyes landed somewhere on his exposed collarbone as he tipped back more beer. Dennis was just watching him with a strange, hooded gaze and Mac put his bottle down hard on the table.

“You ever go home with any of them?” he asked bluntly.

Dennis startled — just for a second before he got himself back together, smoothing his expression back over into calm. He arched an eyebrow delicately.

“All the chicks are gay,” Dennis said slowly. “There’s not really a point in hitting on any of them. So, you know…”

He looked at Mac like that was that.

Mac raised his eyebrows, face lined with heavy disbelief. They stared each other down for four seconds. For five.

“Sometimes I guess I get bored,” Dennis admitted at last.

Mac smirked. “Yeah?”

“I guess,” said Dennis, shrugging a shoulder. He laughed a little, spreading his hands. “Look, we’ve been a gay bar for months, dude. Shit happens. You drink a little bit, sometimes I go home with somebody here and there. It’s not a big deal.”

Mac’s eyes were wide, but he made sure to nod quickly when Dennis caught his eye. Still, he couldn’t help grinning.

“Right,” he said, nodding. Mac remembered very clearly when he started going home with guys here and there, “didn’t mean anything,” and it definitely hadn’t been no big deal. His gaze flicked down to Dennis’s chest and back up. “Sure, it’s totally not.”

Dennis hesitated for half a second, his drink raised but unsipped, before he seemed to elect to believe him.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “So, how’ve you been, man? Chelsea, right?”

“Yep. Chelsea,” said Mac, nodding swiftly. “It’s good, man. You know, it’s just a real short train ride down to the bars. Got a few friends up there. It’s cool.”

“Sounds it,” said Dennis.

Around this point in the conversation, Dennis’s foot nudged up against Mac’s below the table. Mac held his breath for half a second, wondering if it was an accident, but then Dennis didn’t move it and Mac shifted his own a little closer, leaning into the pressure. The barest hint of a smile flickered over Dennis’s face, he thought, but it could have been a trick of the dim lights.

“Are you gonna go back to the city?” Dennis asked. “After your dad gets out and settled? You never answered my question.”

“Oh.” Mac looked down, fingers drumming on his own thigh, for a long moment before glancing back up. His brow furrowed. “Yeah, probably…Probably. I just gotta stay and help him get settled in. Find him a job, that sort of shit. I mean, I have a place up there, so…”

“Right,” said Dennis. He nudged the side of Mac’s shoe with the toe of his own. “Yeah, that makes sense. No sense paying rent on a place that you aren’t living in.”

“Yeah,” Mac agreed, looking down again for a moment. “Yeah, exactly. So I’ll just be here for the month. You know, my mom needs me and shit anyway. She’s like, a billion years old. And she’s been alone since my dad left, uh, I think, so she likes having me around for the company.”

Dennis had an eyebrow raised at this, but he didn’t expand on whatever thought he clearly had and Mac couldn’t get it without a hint. Dennis didn’t say anything at all for a long moment, actually.

“Well,” he said, stilted, at last, “that’s cool, man. Good for you. You don’t have anyone up there who’ll miss you too bad then, I guess?”

Mac flinched. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“No!” Dennis said quickly, waving his hands frantically at him. “No, that’s not what I meant! I just—”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Mac, slumping over. “I get you. And I mean, I’ve got this little, uh, trio that I run around with, but…I really like them! They’re great! But no, I don’t have, uh — like a boyfriend or anything.”

“Oh.” Dennis’s cheeks colored. “That not what I — oh, okay. Well. Uh, sorry?”

Mac laughed a little, surprised. When he put his palm down flat on the table, his thumb brushed against Dennis’s wrist. Dennis tensed for a split second but didn’t pull away, and then he relaxed. Mac dragged his gaze from their hands up to his face.

“Don’t be,” he said, still smiling easily. “I like it. I’m a playboy. I’m uh — I like, you know, playing the field. Seeing what’s out there…Getting dirty.”

“Getting _dirty_?”

“Not…” Mac flushed. “I’m not dirty. I just meant, like—”

It wasn’t true, anyway. Mac definitely was due for another run down to the free clinic. Either way, Dennis saved him from going on about how he liked getting his dick as wet as possible.

“Settling down not for you, huh?” Dennis was grinning, eyes bright.

Mac shook his head slowly. “Nope. But last I checked, that was exactly your style.”

Dennis laughed, head tilting back just a little. “Gotta say, I can respect that.”

They smiled at each other for a long moment over the tops of their beers. Then, at last, Dennis pulled his foot away and stood up.

“Look, man, I’ve got to get back to work,” he said. He held his hand out, and Mac reached for it — at the last second he understood something Dennis hadn’t said, and he eased right into a dumb handshake they’d made together in tenth grade. Dennis was grinning brighter than ever when they were done. “I’m really glad you’re back in town, Mac. Even if it’s just for a bit. Are you planning on coming back to the bar again? Tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” said Mac. “I might.”

Dennis looked at him, up and down, slow.

“Good,” he said at last. “Otherwise I’d have to ask you out to dinner to catch up or some shit, and that would be, like, a total waste of time and money for me.”

He grinned at Mac for a second. Then he turned and went back behind the bar.

Mac looked after him for a long moment. How his hips swayed slightly when he walked. How easily he could turn on a flirty smile for a customer. The way he spun and shifted and moved mixing together drinks. Mac’s tongue pressed lightly down on his bottom lip, wetting it just slightly; he barely realized his mouth was ajar until Charlie appeared in his eyeline, wearing a huge smile and smelling faintly of bleach.

“Hey!” he said. “You’re still here, that’s great! Wanna do a couple shots?”

Mac grinned, gaze flicking up to him. “Hell yeah, bro.”

 

The bar was a lot tamer the next night. The guy at the door made him wait in line this time, for nearly half an hour until Dennis came outside hauling a bag of trash over his shoulder to throw in the dumpster. As soon as Mac called out to him, Dennis’s expression shifted into something like irritation, and he dragged Mac out of line and inside with an arm around his shoulder.

“Terrell,” he said firmly, stopping short just outside the door to glare at the security guy. “This is Mac. He’s a VIP, okay? That means when he shows up, there’ll be no waiting in lines, no ID checks. He gets to come in whenever.”

Terrell looked him slowly all over, like he was committing Mac to memory. His gaze lingered a little on Dennis’s arm thrown out around Mac’s neck, dragging on his hand near his chest, before looking Dennis back in the eye.

“Sure thing. No problem,” said Terrell, easy as ever.

Dennis grinned. He patted Terrell on the shoulder as they went around him and inside. Mac looked back for a long moment before jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

“You know Terrell’s into you, right?” said Mac.

Dennis startled, glancing sideways at him. “What?”

“He wants to bang the shit out of you, dude.” Mac laughed, but he oddly didn’t find the situation very funny.

Dennis’s laugh was a lot more genuine. He steered Mac directly into a seat and patted both his shoulders before abandoning him to loop around the bar.

“Beer?” he asked, as though the conversation was now over.

Mac said, “Uh — No, can I get a whiskey?” and Dennis hummed in affirmation.

He looked Dennis over perfunctorily as he made him the drink. He was a little tamer-looking than he had been last night. All the glitter was wiped off his cheeks, and even though the white tank top he was wearing was still wrapped as tightly around him as the black one had been, it wasn’t so small that it was riding up on his hips or anything. Mac’s eyes still lingered on his exposed collarbone for a long few seconds, until Dennis pushed a glass of whiskey across toward him. Mac circled the rim with his finger for a few seconds before glancing up at Dennis and saying, “So, what’s going on there?”

Dennis glanced up at him, expression blank.

“What’s going on where?”

“You know,” said Mac, smiling a little. “You and Terrell. Have you ever…?”

“What?” Dennis’s brow pulled together. “No! I mean, he’s been working here a few months, and it’s kind of thanks to him that we did the whole gay bar thing in the first place, but—”

“I just, you said you go home with guys. Sometimes,” said Mac haltingly. “I was just asking.”

Dennis looked at Mac for a long moment with his forehead creased. He glanced at the door, where a little of Terrell’s jacket was visible through the window pane. Then he looked back at Mac, deflating.

“Maybe once or twice we — I mean, just a little, it — It wasn’t really—”

“Hey, boner. Boner’s friend.”

Dennis looked around to see who had spared him from this conversation, and his and Mac’s attention caught on Sweet Dee at the exact same time.

She was looking better than she had in high school, Mac had to admit now that he had a little more time to assess it up-close instead of from across the room for a few seconds last night. Sure, she was never going to be _pretty_ , but her lipgloss was coordinated with her pink halter top, and Mac had to appreciate small details like that. Dennis hip-checked her lightly, a move which situated himself a little more firmly in Mac’s eyeline.

“Hey, Dee,” Mac said neutrally. “Long time, no see.”

Dee raised her eyebrows. It was to Dennis, not Mac, that she turned and said, “Who’s this asshole?” Her voice dropped and she said, a little threateningly, “Did you tell him my name to fuck with me or something?”

“What?” said Dennis, startled. “What possible reason would I have to fuck with you like that? No, it’s Mac.”

Dee glanced at him. “Who the hell is Mac?”

Mac stared at her.

“What the shit?” he asked loudly. “Are you joking, Dee? You’re still not funny, like _at all_.”

Dee stared right back, and with wider eyes. “I’m not joking. Seriously, who the hell is this guy?”

“I’m — It’s Mac!” he said, voice edging up a few octaves.

“It’s Mac,” said Dennis, pointing at him.

“Mac McDonald?” he hinted. “Dee, come on. Don’t be like this.”

“I’m not being like anything!” she said, spreading her hands defensively, her voice lilting with laughter. “I don’t know any Macs. I seriously have no idea who you are.”

“Dee, we used to always get the liquor together in high school ‘cause we were the only ones who had fakes. You got us banned from like, a different place every other week.” She just stared. Mac waved one hand in the air vaguely. “I’m the one who gave you your first cigarette.”

“I’m pretty sure that was my mother,” she said, squinting over at Dennis again. “Right? When we were eleven?”

“No, we were fourteen,” Dennis said slowly. “And it was definitely Mac.”

“Dude, I slept on your couch, like, _every night_ in high school.”

Dee stared. “You went to high school with us?”

“Of course I did!” Mac shouted. “What the hell did you think we were talking about — with the — and the fourteen—”

“Okay, calm down! Everybody just calm down.” Dennis’s hand settled on Dee’s shoulder, and the other reached out and trailed lightly over Mac’s. Mac was abruptly startled into submission, but Dennis wasn’t even looking at him. He was too busy patting Dee’s shoulder. “You, just go wait tables. It’s literally all you’re here for.”

“I’m supposed to be a goddamn bartender,” she reminded him sharply.

“Well, you’re not,” said Dennis, pulling a faux-sympathetic face, “’cause nobody gives a shit about a chick in a gay bar.”

Dee glared at him. She snapped, “I’ll show you,” and promptly stormed over to the only girl there, seated at the very end of the bar and clearly talking to somebody else. Dee interrupted to engage the girl in conversation.

Mac looked back at Dennis.

“What the shit was that?” he hissed, a little strained. Dee was way too unimportant not to remember his goddamn name. If anything, it should be the other way around.

“Who cares? Dee’s an idiot, she probably doesn’t remember Charlie’s name half the time,” said Dennis, waving a hand through the air. “Forget about her. You wanna do some shots?”

Like he’d just popped up out the ground, Charlie appeared next to them. His hand was already on Mac’s back, excitedly touching between his shoulder blades like he couldn’t believe Mac was real unless he was in direct physical contact. It was admittedly a little strange — almost too good to be true — to be back with them after all this time. Mac slung an arm around Charlie’s shoulders and squeezed for half a second before they let each other go.

“Shots?” Charlie asked.

Dennis grinned at the both of them and started pouring out tequila.

 

For several nights, things were the same. Mac came into the bar around seven or eight, whenever he got done walking around looking for places that might hire recently released felons or else whenever he got bored of watching TV with Poppins sat in his lap and his mom blowing smoke directly into both their faces from beside him. Terrell never looked at him very long when he did come by, just let him in without a word, and Dennis grinned at him with a mega-watt smile when he saw him. He would have a drink ready almost as soon as Mac’s ass hit his preferred seat at the bar, and he, Dennis, and Charlie would spend the night catching up and messing around in between them having to do their jobs here and there. Usually, they got really busy around midnight — too busy to talk to him. It barely mattered; Mac could almost guarantee that he would only be alone a few minutes before some guy came over to keep him company, and anyway, he would be back the next night to do it all again.

“Dee’s actually getting some tips,” Mac said, a little under a week since he’d first come by Paddy’s. His gaze flickered over to where she was smiling and chatting with a young woman in a leather jacket, and Dennis glanced over too. The tip jar behind her was only half as full as Dennis’s, but that was still way better than she’d been doing all week.

“Yeah, she is,” he commented, turning back to Mac. They clinked shot glasses and tossed back another. “There’s been more chicks coming in lately, it’s weird.”

“Straight girls?” Mac asked, eyes flicking back to the woman Dee was talking to. She had her arm around a blonde girl in a backwards hat next to her, and Mac frowned. More straight women in here would mean Dennis needing to go home with less guys under his urge to satiate whatever weird flirting thing he wanted to get out of his system. “There’s always straight girls in gay bars.”

“I don’t think so,” Dennis said with a little shrug. “They’re always all over Dee and shit, I really don’t get it. Do I not look good?”

He stepped back a bit from the bar, hands up, and did a slow turn on the spot. He was wearing an open flannel with nothing underneath tonight, and he had smeared glitter, not just on his cheeks, but all over his pecs and leading down his stomach rubbed into where his happy trail would be, if he had one. Mac looked for a long moment, attention lingering on Dennis’s ass in his very tight jeans when he was facing away from him.

Mac swallowed, forcing his eyes back up to Dennis’s face.

“No, you look…You look great,” he managed. “I don’t know, Dennis. Have you seen Dee?”

It was true; maybe Dennis had been getting slowly less clothed and more risqué as the nights passed, but as though in direct reaction to this, Dee had been dressing differently too. She was also in a flannel that was tied off around her midriff with a very tight wife beater on underneath, and a really small pair of jean shorts. Even as they watched, she spilled a drink — very obviously on purpose — onto the exposed part of her white tank top and giggled. Mac felt vaguely nauseous at the display.

“What’s…What is happening?” said Dennis.

Mac shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s Dee. When did we start giving a shit? Hey, let’s do another round.”

Dennis took a long moment to look away from whatever bizarre and unsubtle exhibition Dee had going on around the other end of the bar. The two girls she was chatting with were watching her raptly, and Mac raised an eyebrow. He had some idea.

Dennis dumped out two more shots and slid one over to him. Mac tossed it back, grabbing for a lime before it was all the way down his throat. Head still tipped back, he was groping around blindly on the counter; he felt Dennis’s fingers brush lightly against his own, and he clumsily tipped his palm up. Dennis dropped the lime into his hand and then helped curl Mac’s fingers over it, squeezing softly with his own. Mac brought it up hastily to his mouth and then just looked at Dennis while he sucked on it. Dennis watched him back, with an oddly dark gaze. Mac crumpled the used lime into a napkin and slid it away.

Dennis didn’t look away after a moment like he would have expected him to. He just watched as they stared, and said nothing, and stared — and they weren’t saying anything, weren’t doing anything. Maybe Mac should muster up something…

But it didn’t feel like the same uncomfortable silence like the one that had reigned when he’d first come back to the bar last week, with Dennis’s judgement on him like lead stocks over his head and shoulders. There was no push to fill it with meaningless chatter just to relieve the tension, because there was no tension.

Actually…that wasn’t entirely true.

“Have you thought about who you’re taking home tonight?” asked Dennis.

Mac worked to unstick his jaw, and still all he managed was, “Huh?”

Dennis jerked his chin out to indicate the room in general. “Which of these beefcakes are you leaving with? You usually leave with someone.”

Mac forced himself to turn around and give a quick scan of the crowd.

“Oh…yeah,” he said. But he barely glanced at anymore for more than a second or two. His attention was already magnetized back to Dennis and the swell of his bottom lip, which was a little shiny from swigging tequila. “Yep, I have.”

“Cool.”

Dennis looked at him for a long moment, saying and doing nothing else. Then he reached for the shaker and poured out a line of salt, and slowly licked it off his hand. Mac just blinked, enraptured with the smooth slide of his tongue over the dip behind his thumb. Dennis kept his eyes on Mac the whole time, even when he tipped his head back and downed the tequila shot; Mac’s gaze got momentarily stuck on the dip and slide of Dennis’s throat, and he couldn’t make himself stop staring with his mouth ajar for anything.

Dennis finished another lime and set it aside. When he leaned over the counter, arms folded and chest dangerously low to the bar, Mac swayed in closer too on some primal instinct. He worked hard to the unstick his jaw, and even when his voice finally did come out, it was unnaturally gravelly, like he’d just sucked something a lot rougher than a handful of limes.

“I’ve been thinking—”

“Charlie?”

The voice was loud and disbelieving enough to make Mac break off from what he’d been about to say, and both he and Dennis turned toward the entrance to see what was about to go down. Something about the way they said his name dimly reminded Mac of how Charlie had sounded when Mac had first reentered the bar and, thus, their lives for the first time in over a decade with no warning, and wow, he was going to be _so_ pissed off if this was another fortunate reappearance from their past that was trying to steal his thunder.

A pretty, petite girl he’d never seen before was standing beside Terrell in the doorway. She had her arms crossed and she looked _pissed_.

“Charlie?” Terrell echoed, looking between the girl and where Charlie was now standing frozen over by the pool table. “You guys know each other?”

Dee put down the drink she was mixing at the other end of the bar.

“Terrell?” she said curiously. She looked over at Charlie. “What’s going on here? Do you know this girl?”

“Yeah!” Charlie said, reanimating abruptly only to look very, very mad. Mac instinctively slumped back in his seat a little; he knew angry Charlie, and angry Charlie was like a wild, feral thing. He often cared more about what he was trying to get his claws into than what happened to be standing in the way. “That’s the crazy bitch that punched me in my eye!”

“Charlie!” Terrell snapped. “That’s my sister!” He spread his hands, turning to the twins. Slightly more calmly, he added, “I was bringing her back for a drink, she just finished with a night class and I thought she could use a beer to relax.”

“She beat the shit out of me!” Charlie yelled. “Like, two months ago, we went out and she gave me a fucking black eye, dude!”

“Yeah, because _you_ were only using me to prove you had black friends to some waitress.” She looked imploringly up at her brother. “He was just trying to get in her pants!”

“I — Now hold on,” said Charlie, holding his hands up. “That’s not true. I wasn’t using you—”

At this point in the argument, the girl proceeded to toss out a few choice accusations that were almost definitely true; Charlie spluttered in protest without ever making a successful rebuttal, and Terrell said, “Fuck you guys. I’m out,” took his sister by the shoulders, and left.

There ensued a big, long silence that engulfed all four of them, although Mac was more awkward bystander than anything else. Dennis, Dee, and Charlie all looked at each other.

“Oh…Shit,” said Charlie.

Dee sighed. “Goddamn it. You know, he was the whole reason we got this much business in the first place?”

“Everyone, relax,” said Dennis. “We already have a rep in this town now, so he doesn’t have to bring in customers anymore. We can keep this going by ourselves! We don’t need him.”

“Uh, yeah, we do, Dennis,” Dee said patronizingly. “Plus, now we’re shorthanded and I have to go back to taking out the trash and all that other stupid shit I’ve been pushing off on him. Thanks!”

“I’ve been taking out the trash, you bitch,” Dennis snapped. “And it’s Charlie’s job anyway! Neither of us should be doing it!”

“I already clean the goddamn bathrooms and do all the electrical!” Charlie shouted, inching closer to the bar. “You assholes can do this _one thing_ —”

“—because it’s your goddamn _job_ , you are the _janitor_ —”

“—my shares—!”

“—I’ve been getting more tips than you, what are you _talking_ about, you just flirt and eyefuck your new—”

It was around this point of the conversation that it became more about who could yell the loudest than who was making a valid point. Dee, Dennis, and Charlie had all managed to congregate in a small group down at Dee’s end of the bar and they seemed much more interested in passing around blame and credit than they were in doing much of anything else. Mac, who had no part in this one way or the other, and who had been abandoned down at the other side near the entrance, just sighed. He reached over the counter to grab a beer for himself and then slumped down over it.

No use waiting out a fight that he knew could take hours; in a few minutes, some stranger would spot him and be over to keep him company. Mac just sat there and waited for him, whoever he was, to come try and entertain him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [xo](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/180416365980)


	3. before i make a move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure that guy you were talking to is coming back?” Dennis asked. “He seems pretty…busy.”
> 
> “What’s it to you?” Mac asked. He wanted to sound angry, a little frustrated — but his voice came out sounding hitching and awkward, instead. He swallowed hard.
> 
> “Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Dennis said slowly. He pressed his lips together like he was debating something; then he said, “Just means I get to keep talking to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been watching a ton of early seasons sunny and this is a result of _days_ of watching "early mac is a textbook fuckboy asshole but god, it's fuckin sexy"
> 
> please enjoy these carefully tended tropes xo

It took over an hour for the gang to stop screaming about trash (an argument that escalated and spread until it became about fire, and the stars, somehow; and then global warming and whether or not that was real; and it had really just gotten more out of hand from there). Mac had honestly expected it to take even longer; possibly it had only been cut so short because there was now a queue of people rapping their knuckles for attention on the bar, and at least three of their big beer glasses had already been thrown to the floor in anger and Charlie had to go get a broom before more people cut their feet.

Mac was leaning back on the bar. He was on his second Heineken, but it was mixing comfortably with the shots in his head. Maybe that’s why the guy he was talking to was _so_ goddamn funny; Mac kept running his hand over his biceps, laughing at every other thing he said. The guy, Tanner, swept his thumb against the tattoo on Mac’s forearm and grinned, his face looming close.

“So you’re a computer geek, huh?” said Mac. He flicked his gaze real slowly over him, so Tanner could see it happen. “Cool. There’s good money in shit like that.”

“Yeah, there is.” Tanner leaned a little further into the bar, and a little closer to him. His hand tightened on Mac’s arm. “I can afford some _very_ nice places to take my, uh, my _friends_ out to dinner.”

“Friends, huh?” Mac grinned. “What, not a lot of dick action coming out of the tech biz?”

“What?” Tanner blinked at him, clearly a little thrown. “No, that’s not what I…Huh? I didn’t mean, like, _my friends_ , dude. I meant, like…dates.”

“Oh.” Mac thought this over for a moment. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“I was being subtle,” he said, a little annoyed. He shoved his hands in his front pockets, tipping away from Mac. Mac lounged back against the bar, thighs parting.

“Oh, okay.” Mac shrugged. “I didn’t think fucking around online was a dude-magnet. It kind of—” He chuckled. “—It kind of screams ‘permanent virgin’ to me. But, uh, cool! So you have money, that’s cool—”

“Okay, Jesus Christ!”

Mac startled. “What?”

“You may be pretty,” said Tanner, checking him out again, “but you are _such_ a douchebag. It’s not worth it.”

“What?”

“Bye.”

“Wait. What?”

Tanner had already walked away.  Mac slumped down over his beer again, muttering, “What the fuck?” Tanner’s finished drink was sitting next to him and Mac flicked at it, considering throwing it to the floor. It would hardly be the biggest mess of glass and sticky liquor that had ended up shattered on the floor tonight, and it would probably even be halfway satisfying. But before Mac could muster the energy to reach for it, the glass slid away and Mac looked up. Dennis grinned at him from the other side of the counter. There was something a little tight about his smile that Mac couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Your friend coming back?” Dennis asked.

He jerked his head in the direction where Tanner had left. He was already playing pool with somebody else, his hands on the other guy’s hips; Mac stared for a long few seconds before he managed to tear his eyes away and bring them back to Dennis.

“Yeah, he’ll be back in a second,” said Mac. He nudged his beer over the counter and looked up at Dennis, his eyes wide. “Have another drink with me in the meantime?”

Dennis said nothing, but just watched him for a long few moments, his tongue running idly over his lower lip like he didn’t notice he was doing it. Mac knew he should probably look him in the eye but he couldn’t, for some reason, drag his focus away from what Dennis’s pretty pink mouth was doing. Dennis suddenly relaxed into a big smile, and Mac unfroze just as Dennis ducked to start rifling around underneath the counter. He barely glanced at what Mac was drinking before he pushed a vodka cranberry over to him and made another one for himself.

Dennis didn’t say anything like Mac had expected, didn’t ease them into conversation like he often did during lulls. He clinked his glass with Mac’s and then just relaxed over the counter, elbows sliding smoothly over the bar as he cozied up closer to him. Mac licked the last drops of beer off his lips and traded his empty bottle out for the glass of vodka. Dennis’s gaze was dark, focused on Mac’s face.

“Are you sure your friend’s coming back?” Dennis asked. “He seems pretty…busy.”

His voice was pitched down, low and strange; Mac raised his eyebrows. Dennis nodded his chin to the side, and when Mac glanced over, he saw Tanner standing with his palm against the cheek of the guy he’d just been playing pool with, guiding him along in a warm kiss. Mac cut his eyes away, clearing his throat and looking back up at Dennis.

“What’s it to you?” he asked. He wanted to sound angry, a little frustrated — but his voice came out sounding hitching and awkward, instead. He swallowed hard.

“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Dennis said slowly. He pressed his lips together like he was debating something; then he said, “Just means I get to keep talking to you.”

Mac’s mind skidded as it tried frantically to align those words in any way other than the one it wanted to register them as. Dennis could so easily have meant to say he found the idea a punishment, but he didn’t sound like that’s what he meant at all. The slow gaze he dragged over Mac didn’t seem to point to that, either. Mac bit down on his lip hard.

“Nobody’s making you,” Mac said. He jerked his head toward the rest of the room. “Plenty of guys would probably kill for your attention right now. So if you don’t feel like being here talking with me—”

“I didn’t say that.”

Even when he was interrupting him, Dennis’s voice was so slow, so methodical. He sounded sweet and deliberate as honey. Mac wanted to be mad about getting cut off but every inch of him was telling him to lean into Dennis’s space and drink up how he lost that last bit of composure, when Mac got near.

“I know,” said Mac, eyes flicking down to Dennis’s mouth again for a millisecond. “’Cause if you really wanted to leave, you would have done it by now.”

This, at last, earned him a smile — even if just a crooked half of one. Dennis dipped his head.

“Yeah, I would have.”

Dennis’s fingertips were dancing along his forearms. If they had been tapping on the bar, it would have seen like an anxious rhythm. Either way Mac was seized with the urge to reach out and trap them with his own, to force him into stillness. He clenched his fists where they were relaxed underneath his crossed arms, instead. He didn’t know when he’d leaned so much closer to Dennis over the counter, but now the lack of distance between them was unmistakable. He could feel the bare inches separating them like a vibration in the air.

“Dennis, I need help on the floor.” It was Dee, of course it was Dee. Always goddamn here when nobody wanted her around. She was tapping insistently on Dennis’s arm and repeating his name ad infinitum.

Dennis didn’t even take his eyes off of Mac’s, not for one second.

“I’m busy over here,” he said, shoving her off of him, still without looking away. “Handle it yourself.”

Dee said a few more things but honestly Mac couldn’t have repeated any of them for love or money. Dennis’s smile was turning a little warmer, more hot and thin than cool and sweet, and it was taking up every single bit of his attention. Mac’s gaze traced the curve of Dennis’s mouth, back and forth. The way he watched Mac back was heady.

Dee wandered off after a moment, who really knew where. Mac said something and he didn’t know what it was, but it was fine because it made Dennis throw his head back laughing. God, the line of his motherfucking _throat_. Mac grinned into his next sip of vodka cranberry.

“Wanna take a shot with me?” Dennis asked.

He sounded so young and full of the kind of happy energy he used to have in high school: The way he sounded the very first time he proposed that he, Mac, and Charlie all drop acid together; the way he sounded when he asked to borrow a pair of Mac’s pajamas and sleep in his bed, because his parents were fighting again, except not quite as sad. Almost vulnerable. Mostly like he was scrounging up excuses to pull Mac close.

“Yeah,” said Mac, and his throat felt dry.

Dennis unscrewed the top off the same vodka he’d used in their drinks — “No sense in mixing clear with brown,” he said, while Mac nodded like he was really spellbound — and poured them both shots. Dennis always poured too much in a glass, so full and heavy that it slopped over the sides before he could even try to move it close enough to drink. The liquor trickled down the back of Mac’s hand but it wasn’t anywhere near as worthy of attention as the way Dennis winked at him right before they threw them back.

“So,” said Dennis, screwing the cap of the vodka back on and stowing it away again back under the bar. “What were you saying to me back there?”

“Huh?”

“Before that girl came in to beat on Charlie some more,” said Dennis. “You were saying that you’ve been thinking about something?”

“Oh.” Mac’s mind whirred back through the night, and to that conversation. He toyed, briefly, with swinging around back to that but it seemed that the moment had passed. He only turned a little rosy-cheeked, to his credit. “Nothing, dude. Never mind.”

Dennis watched him for half a second.

“Okay,” he said, sounding strangely unconvinced of something. Mac cut his gaze away to the side, clearing his throat. Dennis’s fingers drummed against the counter, and he said sharply, “You know, it’s pretty goddamn ridiculous that we got pulled into all that Charlie stuff anyway.”

Mac glanced up. “What?”

“You know.” He waved his hand around. “He came in with all his bullshit, and, like, it pulled me away from what we were talking about. So…”

“Oh…Well, that’s okay,” said Mac, perking up a little. “I know how that game goes. You know, someone’s got something interesting going on. You get pulled in.”

“Right,” said Dennis, nodding slowly.

“Right,” Mac echoed. “And we’ve always got something interesting going on.”

Dennis pulled a face, even as he said, “Yeah…I guess that’s true,” in a way that meant that he agreed but he wasn’t ready to get derailed from his mounting mood yet.

“So. Uh, are you sure you don’t need to go help Dee with anything? Like, you’re good to stick around for a bit?”

Dennis didn’t even glance up to see how Dee was doing. Instead, he just grinned at Mac, bright and flashy all at once.

“Nope,” he said, leaning back over the counter toward him again. “I’m all yours.”

Mac couldn’t help it; he licked his lips as he checked Dennis out a little bit. It was hard not to, but Dennis didn’t seem overly put off when Mac met his eye again. For all he grumbled when Dee beat him to filling drink orders for the few extra women here and there that had been trickling into the bar lately, he sure seemed to eat it up when Mac leaned over the counter and gave him a slow once-over with his lip pulled between his teeth. Still, Mac knew the score with Dennis: He liked attention, and something about winning Mac’s attention had always made it sit extra high on his list.

But he found it impossible to look away, to stop smiling at him and watching his mouth when he said something. In Mac’s defense, he had really pretty lips.

“Dennis.”

Dee was back. Dennis, again, didn’t look at her even when he spoke to her.

“What?”

“You need to go talk to those guys and get them to stop fighting,” she said, gesticulating angrily across the room, where two men by one of the corner booths were already starting to tussle. “They’re going to break something, maybe each other.”

“That’s Terrell’s job.”

Mac took a long sip of his vodka cranberry. Dennis bit his lip, his eyes on Mac’s throat when he swallowed and then his mouth when he put the drink down.

“Well, Terrell walked out last week,” Dee said testily, one hand on her hip.

“Ask Charlie,” said Dennis. He grinned briefly at Mac and reached the few inches separating them to brush his hand against his arm.

“He’s getting the lights back on in the women’s room.”

This, finally, pulled Dennis’s focus a little. He didn’t stop running a knuckle lightly against Mac’s arm, but he did turn to look at her.

“The women’s room?” he said. “We never keep up with the women’s room. There’s never any women in here that need it.”

“Well, I need it,” she said. She threw an arm out to indicate the bar at large. “And in case you haven’t noticed, Dennis, I’ve actually been getting more and more women in here, something that _you_ never—”

“I’m gonna go dance,” Mac interrupted. Dee trailed off and Dennis turned back to look at him. Mac gestured vaguely between the twins. “This…This bores me. I want to dance.”

“Oh. Okay, man.”

Mac raised his eyebrows at Dennis and pushed himself away from the counter, sliding off his stool. He abandoned the rest of his vodka and left to go nearer to where people were bopping along to the jukebox. Dee was bitching again before Mac was out of earshot.

“Dennis? Can I get some help now, please?”

There weren’t that many people dancing, but there was a small crowd that was moving and it wasn’t that weird for Mac to join in, albeit a little on the outskirts of the people already pressed against each other. They were playing what Mac thought was a slightly updated version of the mix that Dennis used to listen to all the time in high school — all the good eighties music he owned, with a few current artists thrown in. He recognized most of the songs, anyway.

Mac looked around a little, figuring that he could probably catch someone’s eye and pull him close. Tanner was still absorbed with the guy he’d met over by the pool table — overly absorbed. They at this point were pressed chest to chest and halfway to feeling each other up as they danced a little ways away. Mac gave up on him quickly; he cast around, sure he could find somebody else that would be good for the night pretty soon.

He was already starting to sweat a little, even though his mostly-mesh half tank gave him lots of breathing room. Being so close to the crowd, feeling halfway drunk, and dancing were all adding to him heating up fast. Mac turned around right as the people behind him parted to make room for Dennis to push his way between them.

“Hey, dude,” said Mac, breaking out into a reflexive smile when he saw him. Over Dennis’s shoulder, Dee was shouting something furiously from behind the bar but it was impossible to make out what she was saying from this close to the speakers. Loud enough to be heard, Mac said, “Aren’t you helping Sweet Dee with whatever she was yammering about?”

“Dancing sounded better,” said Dennis. “I put her in charge for a while.”

He was steadily getting closer, and closer, and closer to where Mac was standing. Mac had several questions pop up and die in his throat before he ever got a chance to voice them. Dennis just kept gyrating his hips around and Mac’s attention was stuck on them, like they were talking to him instead of his mouth. Mac dragged his eyes back up to Dennis’s face at last and Dennis was right in front him, bare inches away.

“What are…”

Dennis was so close that their knees kept bumping as they moved. Mac was barely swaying with the music anymore, because all the blood in his veins seemed to have been replaced with something viscous and paralyzing. Dennis was not at all having the same problem; he pressed even closer, until they were undeniably dancing _together_. Their bodies were brushing up against each other so faintly that it barely qualified as touching, but those points of contact still immediately took over every single thought in Mac’s head. Mac was barely dancing at all, actually, mostly frozen as he watched Dennis sidle nearer and nearer.

Dennis arched an eyebrow and, at the same time, reached out with an annoyed little noise and slid his hand around and down into Mac’s back pocket.

The air that punched out of Mac’s gut then sounded faintly like, “ _Oh_ ,” but mostly like nothing at all. He clutched automatically for Dennis’s hips, his body catching on to what was happening before his head quite got there. He was already slipping closer on instinct anyway, pressing a knee further between both of Dennis’s, and Dennis helped pull him the rest of the way against his body with the hand on his ass. Mac brushed his thumbs up against the skin underneath Dennis’s open flannel. His fingers caught on a spare bit of glitter and he pushed it across Dennis’s waist, captivated by watching himself rubbing it into his skin.

Dennis pulled back just far enough to put his hands over Mac’s on his waist, and he kept them pressed steady there when he twisted his hips around in a slow circle, getting closer to Mac in the process. Dennis just watched his face the whole time as he did it, the ghost of a laugh flitting across his expression for a split second while he watched Mac’s mouth hang open.

Mac’s grip on his waist tightened. If Dennis wanted to dance with him, they were going to dance together for real. He could give Dennis the best dance of his whole goddamn life he wanted it so bad.

He pushed on his waist until Dennis’s gaze darkened and flicked over his face, and then Dennis acquiesced to letting Mac turn him around and pull him roughly back against his body.

There was already glitter getting all over the front of Dennis’s thighs from Mac’s searching hands, spreading out across his abs and sliding down his hips and running over everywhere else he could reach. Dennis grinded back on him, kind of messy in its execution but clearly purposeful, and just shameless enough that he had clearly done this kind of thing before. It was impossible not to start reacting to it. To Dennis, moving his body so close. Mac could hardly be blamed when his cock started to thicken, and he started to grind a little more deliberately against Dennis’s ass.

Mac leaned in until his mouth was by Dennis’s ear, so that he could be more easily heard over the music. Jesus Christ, he was really grinding to Britney. At least Toxic had a good beat.

“What are you doing?”

Dennis tipped his head back until he could meet Mac’s eye. He looked — kind of amused. He laughed.

“You said you wanted to dance.”

“I didn’t realize you meant with you,” said Mac honestly. Still, he squeezed Dennis’s waist under his hands and Dennis bit his lip, watching him for a long moment. He leaned away from Mac’s face, then, and Mac’s gaze flicked down to study the new space that opened up between them.

God, he was running hot. There were flecks of glitter dotting the bottom of Dennis’s shirt and a little that had got on his jeans. Mac flushed warm watching Dennis dance back on him, watching how he was rocking forward along with him and sliding his cock up against his ass. Jesus Christ, Dennis had a nice ass.

Mac skimmed his hands up to Dennis’s waist, touching bare skin, and then kept going. He spread his palms out against his sides, smoothing up over his ribs and then over his chest. He scratched roughly, on an impulse — Dennis let out a strangled sound and his whole body jerked, off-rhythm for a moment before he found his pace dancing again. Mac grinned; he dug his nails in hard again, and Dennis shivered and pressed harder back against his body. Mac rubbed a free hand up the inside of one of his thighs, just touching and reaching without ever sweeping up fully between his legs.

It was…dirtier than he meant it to be. Not that he was complaining; they kept at it, rubbing up on each other and moving together, Mac touching all the bare skin he could get his hands on, until the song ended and faded effortlessly into the next one. This new one was a little more synth-y than the one before.

Dennis eased away from him by degrees. Mac kept a tight grip on his hips until Dennis peeled his body away entirely and turned back around to face him. Mac’s gaze dropped, catching immediately on the bulge in Dennis’s jeans, and he didn’t realize how hard he was panting until he saw Dennis’s own chest heaving in sync. He worked to get his breathing back under control, but his blood was still singing. If his cheeks were anywhere near as flushed as Dennis’s were right now, the tempo of his breathing would hardly make a difference. What he was thinking was obvious just from the sweat beading at his hairline, and the dip underneath his ear…and down his exposed clavicle…and slipping softly across the concavity under his hips…

Dennis made an abortive gesture toward him and Mac’s attention snapped back up to his face. Despite his dishevelment, Dennis managed to plaster a casual expression on.

“Well,” said Dennis, voice still a little louder than average so he could be heard over the music, “that was fun.”

Mac nodded swiftly, tongue swiping out over his lips. It was so fucking hot in here.

“Yeah,” he agreed, half-mindless, barely aware what he was saying. “That was — that was a good idea.”

“Yeah,” said Dennis. “Uh, well it was your idea.”

“Oh. Right.”

Dennis laughed, still breathless but a little more composed. He swept a hand back through his sweaty hair and said, “You wanna come get a beer?”

Mac honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted one or if he was just really ready to say yes to almost anything that Dennis proposed right now. Especially if he was going to keep checking him out like that when he asked, all heated and slow, with his attention stuck on Mac’s mouth when he talked.

“Yeah, beer’s cool,” said Mac. Dennis flicked another glance up and down Mac’s body and then smirked and turned around to head back to the bar. Mac readjusted himself in his jeans and followed after him.

“I have to ask,” said Dennis, as Mac settled into a seat at the end of the bar near the back office and Dennis leaned against the clear side of the counter right next to him. He distributed two bottles between them. “What the hell is going on with that shirt, man?”

Mac glanced down. Nearly the whole thing was clear mesh except for a stripe of leather that cut through the middle.

“What about it?” said Mac.

“Are you serious?” said Dennis, waving a hand at him. “It’s…obscene, dude. That’s really — that’s the only word for it, it is. It’s obscene.”

Mac raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Well, you didn’t seem to have a problem with it when you were getting all your fucking glitter all over it, man. It looked way less gay before that.”

“No, it absolutely was not!” said Dennis. “Your entire midriff is just out in the open!”

“So is yours!” yelled Mac, gesturing wildly at Dennis’s bare torso. Dennis threw his head back at once and started to laugh. Mac scowled, but the longer he watched him, some of the anger sparking up in Mac’s chest began to recede. When Dennis reached out and pushed at his arm, playful, it drained out of him completely. Mac shifted toward him a little, angling closer, his thighs spreading open more on instinct. He rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.”

Dennis grinned.

They sat at the counter nursing beers and tossing back a couple of shots for nearly an hour. Dennis kept touching his arm, or brushing up against his knee. Mac wasn’t sure that he ever looked away from Dennis’s throat the whole time they talked.

Dennis’s last story petered out to its finish, and he was grinning. Mac had honestly missed a lot of the end of it, but that hardly mattered, he thought.

He was drunk by now, but in that way that meant he could still keep his feet but he couldn’t stop himself looking at all the miles of Dennis’s bare skin and thinking about how warm he must be, and how it would feel to press his body up against him. He realized that he knew the song that was playing again. Dennis’s hand was on his knee and it was easy to reach down and slide his palm over it. Dennis bit his lip.

“Come dance with me again,” said Mac. He swallowed hard. “What are you thinking?”

“Yeah,” Dennis breathed, “Sure. It was — It was fun.”

Mac’s brain skidded over a few shitty lines to answer with, but then the moment stretched too long, and he abandoned them all. Instead he loosely encircled Dennis’s wrist, pulling it off his leg as he stood up and tugged him back over toward the jukebox. Mac’s hands were back on his hips before they even stumbled to a halt, and as soon as they started moving together again, Dennis wound his arms around Mac’s neck. His wrists loosely crossed as he pulled himself closer to Mac, their thighs slipping together fast and easy. Mac’s nose brushed the edge of Dennis’s jaw and he looked down between them again, enjoying watching them move and rock together. They were so close to the speakers that it was impossible to hear anything, even Dennis’s breathing by his ear, but he knew it was labored from the warm puffs of it ghosting down his cheek.

Mac thumbed at his hips for a second, then pulled him in closer. Dennis gasped shallowly when the move tugged them flush together, and even Mac couldn’t help the low noise that rumbled from his chest then.

He was drunk and warm and even though he wasn’t hard anymore because of the respite at the bar, it was easy to start getting there. The hot press of Dennis’s dick against his own was making him get a little dizzy, his brain beginning to fog over. Dennis’s arms tightened around him and Mac looked up.

Looking at each other while they rocked together made it instantly, infinitely more difficult to regulate his breathing. Dennis couldn’t stop staring at Mac’s mouth but Mac was tracking across his throat, the sweat sliding down his jaw, the hungry look in his eyes. He dipped his fingers into Dennis’s back pockets to pull him harder against him, lapping up the look that shuttered over Dennis’s face when he did.

Every song played in bars sounded more or less the same if you weren’t paying attention, and between that and the drinks swimming in his blood, Mac had no idea how long they had been grinding out on the floor together. He dimly thought it had been a while but it was also difficult to disengage and focus on anything else except Dennis’s cock pressed up against his, how his chest heaving bumped their abs together every so often and spread glitter out in a mess across Mac’s bare stomach, how he had started spreading his fingers up through Mac’s hair and was massaging lightly. Every now and again he pulled, not that hard, but just enough that it felt like the dim promise of something unspoken and difficult to pin down.

Mac drew his gaze up from Dennis’s chest, to his slick collarbone, and up to look him in the eye. Dennis stopped breathing for a moment — Mac could tell, because the only part of him moving suddenly was his hips, rocking down on Mac’s thigh and arching back up to grind his dick against Mac’s. Mac slid his hands up his sides, spreading out over his ribs for a long, suspended couple of seconds. Dennis fingers tightened in his hair — Mac’s dug into Dennis’s back, and his heart was racing fast. Dennis’s eyes traced a slow path back down to his mouth.

Mac leaned in and kissed him so hard that they rocked back with the force of it. Dennis stumbled to find his balance even as his hands were scrambling in a rush, cupping Mac’s jaw and sliding back into his hair to keep him anchored there. Their mouths slid and fit together, hot and open over and over while they clutched at each other. They both seemed to be trying to get as tight a hold on as much as possible that they could.

Mac thumbed across his ribs. Tentative and questioning, his tongue rubbed against Dennis’s lower lip; Dennis kissed him back immediately with a low groan, tongue flicking out against Mac’s and encouraging him to press further into his mouth. Dennis’s palm slipped up Mac’s shirt, laying hot against his chest.

Immediately, he decided that he liked the way Dennis kissed. His mouth moved with Mac’s in perfect rhythm, glad to closely follow along with Mac’s lead as he moved them this way and that. He shivered prettily when Mac bit down on his lower lip and tugged on it, sucking like he had with those limes from the tequila shots all those hours and hours ago. Mac pressed his palm into the small of Dennis’s back, angling his body closer to himself, and Dennis shuffled in against his chest and opened his mouth wider, the kiss turning dirtier than before. Mac reached and grabbed a thick handful of his ass, keeping him still while he canted his hips up and ground his cock slow and heavy against Dennis’s. Dennis’s moan was perceptible, though more felt than heard, against Mac’s mouth.

“Den,” he murmured, pulling away to breathe.

Their foreheads knocked together, and Dennis’s fingers were sliding warm and searching across Mac’s cheeks. They slipped against his lips, with a bite of pressure as he rubbed across them; Mac’s mouth was slick from drinking and Dennis’s tongue, and Mac couldn’t help kissing a little pressure back into his fingers. He was panting, watching Dennis watch his hand. When he seemed to have touched his fill, Dennis locked his fingers together around the back of Mac’s neck and nudged his nose against Mac’s, eyes falling shut for a second. He circled his hips up against Mac’s and his head tilted back with a low groan.

“Yeah,” Dennis breathed. “Yeah, I know.”

Mac grinned. “I didn’t say anything.”

Dennis leaned down to press a small kiss just to the side of his chin, and he pulled away laughing. “I still know.”

“Shut up, man.”

They were still doing a slow grind together, way off-tempo from the music. Mac turned his head to get his lips back on Dennis’s. Dennis’s tongue was insistent on his almost immediately, and Mac clutched at his ass again. Dennis’s hands slipped down Mac’s arms and ended up lingering on his biceps.

They picked up the beat of the music again. Mac wondered again how long he had been standing here, grinding and trading long, hot kisses with his ex-best friend by the jukebox in this shitty goddamn bar that Dennis somehow owned. Mac’s head was starting to spin again.

“Hey, come here,” Dennis mumbled after a while. Mac chased his mouth a little as he pulled away. Dennis grinned and bumped his nose against Mac’s, drawing him in for another short kiss. “Come on, follow me.”

Mac’s eyes flicked over Dennis’s cheeks when they pulled apart, and how all the glitter that used to be there had smudged and been half-wiped away. He didn’t want to know what his own face looked like anymore — how much of that he had smeared across his own cheeks.

Mac followed him so closely that he was half stepping on Dennis’s heels. Dennis was guiding him with two fingers hooked down the front of Mac’s jeans, and he led him through a door by the bar into what seemed to be a back office; Mac didn’t have a ton of time to look around before Dennis shut the door behind him, leaning in so close to press a hand to it over Mac’s shoulder that it would have been all but impossible not to grab Dennis by the hips. Mac leaned back on the door, grinning as he pulled Dennis against him again. He rocked up to fit their bodies back together like they had been out in the other room — aligned all down the front of themselves, warm and satisfying. Dennis swayed and caught himself on either side of Mac’s shoulders.

“Much better,” Dennis breathed. He trailed a finger loosely down Mac’s collar until it disappeared into his shirt.

Mac grinned and pulled Dennis in, licking smoothly back into his mouth as easily as if they had never separated.

Dennis had all new leverage to grind up on Mac and he was clearly fucking thrilled about it. He was using it like an upper hand, a little taller than Mac since Mac was slumped against the door and Dennis was sat up on one of his thighs. He was the one in control of how they moved together and he was much more demanding about it, rocking down into Mac’s lap with more purpose than before, grinding down on Mac’s cock like he wanted more. He had definitely done this kind of thing before.

Mac pressed down on Dennis’s chin a little, opening his mouth wider to kiss him deeper. When Dennis seemed to get the picture, Mac let him go only to spread his hand out across his cheek, angling him around to kiss him better.

“God,” Dennis breathed as he pulled back a little, tracking kisses across Mac’s jaw. “Christ, dude, I could just—”

“Yeah?” said Mac. He squeezed Dennis’s ass again, keeping him steady as he ground up against him. “Yeah, what?”

He tipped his head against the door as Dennis tucked his face into his neck, mouth wet and hot against his pulse. It seemed suddenly unfair that Dennis was touching so much and he wasn’t, and he pressed his hands down the back of Dennis’s jeans to get at more of him. He couldn’t get very far without undoing the zip — they were really fucking tight jeans — but it seemed unfair to reach around and try to give himself some room. That would mean stopping the friction they had going on already, and that was what was making Dennis whine softly against him in a way that was going directly to Mac’s dick. Still, Mac sunk his fingertips into what he could reach. Dennis liked it, evidently; his hips jerked, cock dragging against Mac’s, and the pressure on his neck suddenly grew sharper.

“Jesus,” Mac breathed. He scrambled to scratch a hand up the back of Dennis’s flannel, nails digging into bare shoulder blades. “Fuck, dude, fuck—”

Dennis let him go only to lick a quick stripe over the same spot and immediately attach his mouth elsewhere. He ground his knee up between Mac’s legs at the same time, and Mac gave a low groan as he arched down into the pressure.

“Mac,” he rumbled into his neck. He took one hand off the door finally and smoothed it over Mac’s abs, rubbing into the glitter-splattered soft spot of his stomach. “God, you got hot.”

He pulled back suddenly and looked at him. Mac stared back for a second before breaking out in a grin.

“You think so?” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” Dennis said lowly, and Mac leaned up to kiss him again.

Dennis was smiling against his mouth. He was squeezing and playing with Mac’s arm again, thumb rubbing circles around his forearm tattoo, hand squeezing at his bicep. Mac curled his fingers into the front of Dennis’s jeans and tugged at him, then reached up to push his flannel off his shoulders.

They tried to make out and get him shirtless at the same time for a long, unsuccessful minute. At last Mac shoved him back with a forearm to the chest, and Dennis stumbled up against the desk. He pulled the shirt off his shoulders, struggling to peel it off his wrists. Mac shrugged off the door and Dennis grinned as he caught Mac by the arms and leaned in to meet him as he tipped forward into another kiss. Dennis curled his hand up through Mac’s hair, and Mac pressed him back into the desk. Dennis shifted to sit on top of it after a second, not disconnecting their mouths; Mac immediately squeezed Dennis’s thighs in either hand, pushing them apart so he could fill up the space he made between them.

“You know, you got hot too,” Mac said, pressing his mouth against Dennis’s jaw in a harsh bite and then skimming back to his lips.

“Shut up,” said Dennis, working on undoing Mac’s jeans. “You always thought I was hot.”

Mac was dumbstruck for half a second.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, and kissed him again.

He pulled Dennis to the very edge of the desk and edged in until they were pressed together again. Mac jerked his cock against Dennis’s, and Dennis abandoned his quest to grab at Mac’s ass as much as possible in favor of stripping him out of his t-shirt. Mac tugged Dennis’s lower lip between his teeth when he was free of it, enjoying the satisfied sound that it pulled out of him when he let it go and crushed their lips back together.

Dennis’s hands seemed magnetized to Mac’s chest and abs when they weren’t pulling at his biceps. He smoothed them over Mac’s pecs, rubbing up against his nipples and grinning against Mac’s mouth when he got a satisfied grunt in return. Mac flicked his tongue out against Dennis’s, drawing him back into the same rhythm of long, deep kissing they had all but perfected by now.

They began a steady mapping of each other’s nerves. Dennis seemed as dedicated to learning the moves and places to touch to make Mac moan as Mac was to pulling out those little, involuntary ticks that Dennis would never let himself show under more controlled circumstances: the way he shivered when Mac rolled his tongue along the roof of his mouth; how he gasped shallowly when Mac dragged his nails over his nipples; the way he slumped against Mac’s chest like his strings had been cut when Mac ground the heel of his hand up between Dennis’s legs.

He couldn’t decide was which was better: the sound of his own name, keened out breathily, or how Dennis drew out his curse words when the rest of his vocabulary fucked off to God knew where.

Mac bit down on Dennis’s very inviting collarbone, and Dennis hissed out, “Fu- _uck_ ,” between his teeth, hips canting back. His breathing got heavier, and Mac pulled him in with fingers hooked through his belt loops. Mac kept him tight against his body as he ground up between his legs, hard and slow and deliberate, and moved to suck on the side of Dennis’s neck. When Mac circled his cock against Dennis’s with an unrelenting, harsh pressure, Dennis jerked against him, involuntary and sharp, and Mac was treated to the brief, inviting vision of how good Dennis would be in bed.

“Shit,” he panted out, rocking up into him again.

From his position between Dennis’s legs, it wasn’t hard to set up a rhythm that was different from the jerking and sliding of their laps together from before. This was a hard, consistent pressure instead. Mac thrust up against him again, much more like he fucked than like he danced. Dennis’s mouth fell open further and he moaned outright.

The fantasy of Dennis in bed was getting clearer. Mac would bet he’d go along with whatever Mac wanted.  He would let Mac lay all over him and rock up against his ass, probably — and shit, that would be satisfying, if it was anything like it had been dancing on him but without the irksome barrier of their jeans. The weight of Dennis’s thighs wrapped around him as he rutted up against the inviting heat of him — yeah, Mac could get into that.

Or maybe Dennis would want to go down on him. Mac would be up for that, too. He knew Dennis knew how to use his mouth because of how dirty they were kissing each other and he’d bet he was just as enthusiastic giving head. He’d look fucking good on his knees, taking whatever Mac wanted to give him. Probably begging him for more even as he worked his tongue around what he had.

Dennis’s mouth found his pulse again, on the other side of his neck from before. The sudden pressure snatched Mac clean out of his fantasy and he moaned, knees buckling a little. Dennis stopped sucking on him to grin, a brief flash of teeth before he licked over the bruising area with the exact deliberation from before. Except instead of pulling away, this time, he fastened his mouth back around the same spot and went back to work, darkening whatever mark he was making there. Mac braced his hands on Dennis’s thighs, pressing his weight down.

Mac realized, distantly, that he was whimpering out Dennis’s name. Repeatedly, his voice high and wavering. His cock dragged against Dennis’s, silently begging one of them to make the move to take off both their jeans. At the same time as his own voice came back to him, Mac became aware that he was hearing himself much louder than he should be.

“Dennis?”

Dennis finally pulled away from his throat. The sudden release of pressure was a headrush, like a burst of oxygen in his skull, and he swayed on his feet. Dennis was already busily planting more wet kisses along Mac’s collar.

“Dennis,” he tried again. “Den.”

Dennis swirled his tongue just to the side of his Adam’s apple for a long moment before he pulled away. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, drawing Mac’s focus there, and — Jesus Christ, his lips were red. Mac tipped closer to him instinctively. He had wanted to say something, though…

“Dennis, I think the music stopped.”

Dennis dragged his attention up from where his fingers were rubbing into Mac’s chest to look him in the eye. “What?”

“The music outside,” said Mac, gesturing weakly behind him. “I think it’s off.”

“Oh, shit.” Dennis blinked hard. The more he did it, the more his expression cleared. His arms fell limply into his lap, and Mac took his hands off him and shrugged away a little, slinking back. “Oh shit, what time is it?”

Dennis scrambled to dig his phone out of his front pocket, shifting around on the desk. It made his undone buttons and zip very obvious all of a sudden, and Mac cleared his throat and turned to look at the wall.

“Jesus, dude, it’s two-fifteen.”

“What?”

Dennis sighed and put his phone down next to him, only to then scrub at his face tiredly. Mac’s hands settled tentatively on Dennis’s knees, fingers tapping against his thighs. He wanted to lean in and kiss him again, more than anything. Dennis’s hair was a goddamn mess, and he was still shirtless and disheveled. It would be so, so easy to just lean in and coax him back into a steady rhythm…but Mac was also starting to sober up, and the vestiges of high school-Dennis was starting to creep back up on him, merging strangely with the picture in front of him. Suddenly Mac’s blood was running a little cooler than before.

“I have to go close up,” Dennis said, worrying his bottom lip in his teeth. “Fuck. I’m late already. They’re gonna be pissed.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mac again thought about how easy it would be to lean in and capture his mouth; Dennis would probably wind his arms back around his neck and kiss him loosely in return. Dennis might even pull him back in by the hips and murmur his name again before their lips met. Suddenly the thought was a whole lot less appealing.

Mac wrung his hands together, falling back another step.

“Dennis, uh—”

Mac’s heartrate was beginning to pick up again, like before, but the warmth spreading through him was nowhere near as satisfying as it had just been. This felt a whole lot different from arousal, actually. He met Dennis’s eye finally, and saw the same nervous energy starting to spike his blood reflecting back on him.

“Mac, I’m—”

“Yeah, yep,” said Mac quickly, dipping his head in a shaky nod. “Yeah, me too.”

Dennis took a deep breath and held it. His hand ruffled back through his hair, already a mess from sweat and Mac’s searching fingers. He took a long few seconds to meet Mac’s eye again. When he did, he exhaled in a long, harried puff.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” Mac said quickly to fill the silence. He massaged at his temples, eyes slipping shut for a second. “I mean, I like you, dude. Trust me. And this was really good. This was—”

“It was good,” said Dennis, waving his hands placatingly at him. “I just…”

“I just got back in town!”

“You just got back in town!” Dennis shouted, too loud in the small office.

They both flinched, and curled away from each other a little. Mac cleared his throat.

“I haven’t seen you in, like, over a decade, dude,” he said at last, studying the floor. He was a little quieter than before, steadily gaining back composure. “I just…We were like, best friends, man. You know, back then. And I’m kinda into what we were doing, with the whole getting to know you again and shit. We’re like, totally different people now. Uh, well, I know I am at least. And—”

“And the whole gang, really,” Dennis agreed. He sounded like he was half-tripping over his words trying to get them out. “The whole gang is excited you’re back, you know. And…I just don’t know if something like this — I mean, and I like you too! But—”

“It's not like anything even really happened!” Mac said, studiously ignoring both of their undone jeans. “Nobody even got off, and that’s—”

“Right, right. That’s what counts, right?”

“Right,” said Mac, nodding jerkily. “So, um. So, we’re cool.”

They paused. Then Dennis cleared his throat, and Mac looked up at him at last. For an awkward few seconds, their gazes held.

“So — I should probably get back to work,” Dennis said — too suddenly, and he cringed again. Mac chewed on his lip. “Um…Yeah. Where’s my shirt?”

Mac startled. He cast a glance around.

“Oh, here.”

He bent to grab it off the floor near his feet and handed it over. Dennis traded him for his mesh crop top that he’d thrown over his shoulder. They didn’t speak, barely looking at each other except in odd glances that kept half-missing each other as they pulled their clothes back on and redid their pants.

Dennis hopped off the desk and Mac didn’t back up quickly enough, and they paused, eyes meeting, chest to chest again. For a second, they both held their breaths; then Mac laughed awkwardly, but Dennis didn’t do anything other than blink slowly at him. He reached up after a moment and swiped some glitter off Mac’s cheek. He rubbed it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, zoning out to the motion, before his hand dropped limply.

“Are you — sticking around?” Dennis asked, flicking a glance back to him.

“Oh…No,” Mac said hurriedly. “No, it’s late. I need to get home to Mom—”

“Right, that’s a good call.”

“Right.” Mac rubbed at the back of his neck, and Dennis just looked at him with an unreadable, not-quite-blank expression. Mac dragged his eyes away from staring slightly over his shoulder to glance back. “Um, okay.”

They looked at each other for another stilted couple of seconds, and then Mac ducked around him and out of the office. He sped through the bar, ignoring Sweet Dee clearing up a mess in the corner and breezing past Charlie coming out of the bathrooms, too.

“Hey Mac, you’re taking off?” he called.

Mac barely turned around, knowing exactly how damning a picture he made: mouth red, hair and clothes a mess, and covered head to toe in Dennis’s glitter. He twisted around as little as he could get away with to cast a glance over his shoulder at Charlie.

“Yep, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he called back.

Before Charlie could answer, Mac pushed open the front door and sped out onto the sidewalk, gulping down the first cold, clearheaded breaths he’d had in hours. He leaned against the side of the building, eyes closed and heart racing, trying to work through his clouded thoughts and maybe make a little sense of things. There were things he needed to work out, things he had to consider…The cool air was helping a little bit, but his head was still spinning. The night was too close and yet entirely intangible somehow, and he couldn’t get a steady enough grip on it to sort through everything and calm down.

After a minute or so he gave up. With a sigh, he jammed his hands into his pockets and started off for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [x](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/180659904465)


	4. so it goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis offered a little smile from the other side of the door. He held up one of the Dunkin' cups he had on him. “Let me in? I brought iced coffee, I’ll trade you to let me out of the heat.”
> 
> Mac blinked at him for a long moment, letting Dennis’s self-assured look falter and slip a little, before he broke out in a laugh and gestured for him to come inside.
> 
> "So what's up, man? It's early," said Mac. "What did you want to talk to me about so bad?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for homophobic language x

Mac rolled over with a low groan, shoving his face into his pillow. The sun had somehow managed to manifest bodily in his bedroom and chosen to begin its new life with a physical form by stabbing him, fierce and repetitive, directly in his skull. Mac tugged his blankets over his head and thought about the consequences of getting up to get some water.

He had had worse hangovers, but none of them were ever _good_. He hadn’t even been that drunk anymore by the time he got home last night, he just hadn’t chugged water, which was doubly annoying — he’d been clearheaded enough to strip down and pull a garbage can over in case he puked, but hadn’t had the foresight to avoid this small but sharp headache by hydrating. But he would be fine after some carbs and with electrolytes, he knew that; so with another irritated grumble, Mac flipped his blankets off and stumbled to the bathroom to drink from the faucet.

In an hour, he was feeling much better. He had tugged on a pair of sweatpants and splashed water on his face, so he was feeling cozy and a little more awake after munching on a piece of toast. His mom was up, flicking through a newspaper and grunting already, so she was definitely in a good mood today; Mac decided to bolster that with pancakes for the both of them. He flicked on the stove and starting rifling around in the cupboard for box mix. They had to have something fresher than the one that expired in 2003.

“Oh, Mom, I got it! Don’t worry,” he said excitedly, tugging it off from the top shelf. His mom made a congratulatory grunt from behind him, and Mac spun around to beam at her. “This is great! Do you want more OJ, Mom?”

She grunted at him again, a definite yes. Mac grabbed her the carton from the fridge and dumped some more into her glass; she grumbled a little at him when it spilled over the sides and splashed onto the tablecloth, but Mac just rubbed it into the fabric and put the juice back. He flicked on the stove, and the radio, and dialed around until he found a good tune to hum while he started on breakfast.

He piled the pancakes up onto a plate and pushed it into the middle of the table. He grabbed plates and silverware for the both of them, and his mom finally reanimated longer than it took to turn a page in the paper so she could pull more than half the stack toward herself. Mac just nodded at her and dug into the rest.

“Do you want syrup?” he asked, but she ignored him and was, in fact, over halfway through her first pancake. Mac nodded. “Okay, great.”

Without her filling any of the silence while they ate, Mac took up the mantle. His mom mostly listened, occasionally grunted in answer while Mac chattered about his night. He left out most of the stuff that happened with Dennis, or at least the particularly sordid details; he talked for nearly ten minutes like this, between wolfing down his breakfast, before she looked up and met his eye abruptly.

“Shut the fuck up,” she said sharply. “Jesus Christ, I don’t wanna hear about you banging your fag friend!”

Mac reared back, startled. He blinked at her for a while, then said, “Oh…Okay. Right, I get that. It’s not about the gay thing, it’s just that I’m your son, and you love me, and—”

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. She sighed and went back to her pancakes.

Mac hummed along with the radio and went back to his, too. After a minute or so, he looked up to start telling her about his plans for the rest of the day, but before he could do more than open his mouth, the doorbell rang. He and his mother looked at each other. She didn’t move.

“I’ll — I’ll get it,” Mac said. He scraped his chair back, shoveled one last forkful of pancake into his mouth, and shot her a quick smile as he headed into the living room.

The bell rang again, and then twice more in quick succession.

“I’m coming!” Mac shouted. “Christ, relax! I’m coming.”

A series of sharp knocks followed. “Mac! Mac, open up. It’s me.”

Mac froze for a very brief second before he jolted back to life, striding the last of the distance to the door. He yanked it open, free hand shoved into his pocket. Despite the natural light in the kitchen, he still squinted when the bright full force of the sun hit.

“What’s up, Den?”

Dennis offered a little smile from the other side of the threshold. He held up one of the Dunkin' cups he had.

“’Sup, bro? How’s your hangover?”

“Getting worse the longer I’m outside,” said Mac, shielding his eyes a little.

“Let me in? I brought iced coffee, I’ll trade you to let me out of the heat.”

Mac blinked at him for a long moment, letting Dennis’s self-assured look falter and slip a little, before he broke out in a laugh and gestured for him to come inside.

“I’m screwing with you,” said Mac. “Come on. There might be a pancake left if Mom hasn’t gotten to it.”

“Oh — I ate before I came over. But thanks.”

Mac snatched his coffee out of his hand, then turned and led him inside. Dennis shut the door behind him, hovering in the doorway a bit. He was not-very-subtly casting glances around the house; Mac wandered into the living room, letting him get a decent look around. It had been over a decade since he’d been inside the McDonald place, it was fair to be curious. Honestly, though, not much had changed since high school, something Dennis picked up on immediately as he finally trailed his way further into the house.

“Wow, this is just like I remembered it,” said Dennis. He patted at one of the chairs with the hand not holding his own coffee, squeezing idly at the back cushion. “Actually… _exactly_ like I remember it. Huh. Have you even updated any of this tech?”

Mac sucked on his straw, spinning around to face him again. The coffee was good, exactly how he liked it.

“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. I have a good TV up in my room I’ve been thinking of dragging down here.”

He couldn’t even make comments on décor without it sounding like a goddamn pickup line. He hurried to suck down more coffee to mask the sudden red in his cheeks.

“Yeah,” Dennis said on a little laugh. “Well, whatever. Cool.”

“Yeah.”

Mac was supposed to be being friendly, but it was early and he was undercaffeinated and his guards were down — he flicked his gaze over Dennis absently, he couldn’t help it. Dennis was much more put together than he’d been last night, and had clearly put some time into cleaning up despite looking relaxed in jeans and a very stressed out cuffed t-shirt that he’d had since the early ‘90s. It was honestly more impressive that it was only faded and didn’t seem to have any tears. A flicker of annoyance sparked up in him that Dennis still looked soft and pretty in the very early morning, when he wasn’t dressed down for work and he wasn’t drunkenly trying to grind on him. What an asshole.

“So what’s up, man?” said Mac at last. He swapped his coffee out to his other hand, wiping the condensation off his palm on the side of his sweats and shoving his fist in his pocket. “It’s early.”

“It’s noon,” said Dennis, one of his eyebrows arching in amusement. Mac shrugged, sucking on his coffee again. Dennis rolled his eyes, and he started to say something again but then stopped, squinting at Mac with a pained expression. He pointed vaguely at his own chest and said, “Uh, can you put on a shirt or something, dude?”

“What? Oh,” said Mac, glancing down. “Yeah, I would, but I was gonna pop in a shower real quick after breakfast. I feel gross, dude. I smell like tequila and ass.”

“I wonder why,” said Dennis sarcastically, but his attention skimmed over Mac’s bare abs again for a split second before he sighed, meeting his eye. “Look, dude. Can we talk?”

A flare of panic reared up in him; but he only shrugged and said, “Yeah.”

Dennis spread out so thoroughly in the middle of the couch that he nearly took up the whole thing, despite being slender. Unless Mac wanted to sit right up against one of his spread thighs, underneath his arm, he was relegated to one of the chairs — and he _did_ want to do that, really, but it didn’t feel like that would be very good friend behavior. Mac took the chair.

“So, uh, how have you been, man?” said Dennis, then shook his head. “Since, uh, since last night?”

“Slept like I’d been drinking for five hours before I passed out,” said Mac, laughing.

“Cool, cool,” he said, but Dennis was picking at his nails. “I slept like shit. Too much tequila makes me wake up in the middle of the night.”

“You should have come home with me. You always slept better in my bed,” said Mac, mostly joking, but Dennis turned furiously red at once. Mac gulped down more coffee so fast that he coughed when he hurried on, “Uh, so…What did you want to talk to me about so bad, man?”

“Huh?” said Dennis, glancing up. After a second, he broke out grinning. “Who said it was ‘ _so bad_ ,’ huh? Maybe I just came by to chat.”

“And brought me coffee? No, that’s definitely a bribe,” said Mac, rattling around the ice lying at the bottom of the cup for emphasis.

“I wouldn’t need to _bribe_ you for anything,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. He only looked a _little_ annoyed, which for Dennis was as close to being calm and happy as he ever got. “I could smooth talk my way in here, no problem, even if you completely hated me.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit!”

“Yes it fucking is!” Mac grinned. After a second, though, his smile faded and he kicked out lightly to tap Dennis on the ankle. “Come on, bro. What’s going on? Why are you here?”

Dennis frowned, looking back at his hands. He was just watching them twist together, and it was making Mac watch that too. The fact that he could remember perfectly how those same hands felt twisted up in and yanking on his hair, and how they looked creeping up his chest, and squeezing at his ass — that was just a minor distraction. That was something that he could easily move past, with time. They weren’t even that intriguing to watch, honestly. Everybody had hands. Mac could get felt up by anyone he wanted.

Dennis glanced up at him. With a sigh, he said, “The shirt, bro?”

Mac huffed, a little annoyed, and rolled his eyes.

“Give me a sec.”

He did a quick rummage through the kitchen and came up empty, and made a similar round through the living room. Eventually he managed to pull a loose grey t-shirt out from behind one of the couch cushions, and he tugged it on.

“So,” he said, throwing himself back down and snatching his discarded coffee up from the coffee table. “I’m dressed, your highness.”

Dennis’s eyes were lingering somewhere in the region of his throat. “Yep.”

“So,” said Mac, gesturing with both hands. “Get to it, bro, I don’t have all day.”

“Yeah? You got a ton of big plans for the afternoon, Mr Having Breakfast At Noon?” he teased. But Mac didn’t really laugh, and Dennis frowned after a second. “Okay, look. I don’t want to make this into a whole big weird _thing_ , you know? I don’t want to, like, make it into a whole _feelings_ thing, or—”

“You’re doing a bang-up job of not making it into a thing,” said Mac, and Dennis raised his eyebrows. “You know, what with bringing me bribes and pussyfooting around what you wanna talk about for the whole entire morning.”

“Shut the fuck up.” They grinned at each other for a second, and then Dennis cleared his throat. He started biting at the skin around one of his nails, and went on, “Like we said, it was, you know, a ton of fun. I mean…Fuck, dude.”

He laughed. Mac, though, bit his lip. This time, he took his time raking his eyes up and down his body. This time, he knew Dennis was thinking about it too — how they had felt all pressed together, moaning softly into a kiss — and the payoff was a hell of a lot more fun because of it. Mac was a little red-cheeked, but Dennis was blushing harder. Good; he could always use a little color in his cheeks.

“But that’s not the point!” Dennis said loudly, shaking his head.

“No, of course it’s not,” said Mac, on a sigh. “Look, we said it last night. I wasn’t _that_ drunk, I remember that shit. I just got back, and we — you know, you and me, and the gang — we’re all, like, getting back to being friends and shit. There’s no reason to…you know…”

He gestured between them, an ambiguous wave that he supposed encompassed everything from _talk about how we almost jerked each other off last night_ to _even think about it either, actually_. Dennis looked like he got the picture.

“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding fervently. “’Cause look, I really — I mean, uh. Everyone — uh. Charlie missed you, and shit.” He scratched at his cheek, ran his hand through his hair. “He’d bust my balls for a month straight if he thought I did anything to jeopardize that. You know, fuck up you coming around again…He’s into it. He’s glad you’ve been stopping by.”

Mac’s fingers drummed against the side of his coffee. The ice at the bottom was starting to melt, making the whole thing taste a little watered down. Mac sipped at it anyway, desperate for the caffeine. Plus, not answering gave him ample time to study Dennis again — less checking him out this time, more just watching for tics in his behavior. Dennis never said a lot with words but Mac used to be really good at reading his body language.

He was a little rusty, now, but some things were beginning to come back to him.

“What about you?” Mac asked, chewing on the end of his straw.

Dennis looked genuinely startled at the question.

“What about me what?”

“Did you miss me too?” asked Mac, grinning a little. So they were supposed to be friends, so what? He could still have some fun with it. And needling at Dennis’s latent emotions was always a good time.

Dennis was floundering, true to form. Sometimes he was just so goddamn predictable, it was impossible not to mess around with him a little.

“Shut the hell up,” said Dennis at last.

“Good one.”

“Why do you give a shit?” Dennis pressed.

Mac shrugged. “I don’t.”

Dennis watched him for a few seconds, saying nothing. He had his lips pressed together, not in the judgmental way he often did but like he was refraining hard from saying something. He narrowed his eyes at Mac a little, and after a while Mac got bored of watching Dennis’s internal monologue and dropped his gaze to his own lap.

They were silent so long that Mac started to zone out a little, lost in the hazy distraction of watching his coffee’s ice rattle around, watching his fingers drumming on his knee, and sipping at the dregs of his drink. When he glanced up every now and then, Dennis was chewing around his nails again. Mac dropped his gaze.

The seconds ticked on, and then it got uncomfortable. Mac cleared his throat.

“Well, if that’s it, then I should get started with—” he said, at the same time that Dennis decided to open up with, “Look, man, I gotta ask you—” and they both trailed off, laughing awkwardly.

Mac gave in. “You go first.”

“No, you should—”

“Dennis.”

They stared each other down for a moment. Dennis was scratching nervously at his neck again.

“I just…I’ve been thinking,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Mac directly, which felt like a bad sign. “Do you think, you know, when you were gone...”  Dennis exhaled, noisy and unhappy, as he trailed off again. Mac waited, fidgety, until he glanced up and then finished in a rush, “Were you ever planning to look us up or anything, man?”

That was so completely out of nowhere that he paused for a second, processing. He had more or less thought that Dennis was still stuck on yesterday, and was expecting him to beat the subject dead; and even as he tried to catch up to what Dennis was asking, his mind was just blanking.

“Uh…What do you mean?”

Dennis’s hands twitched together on his lap. He was biting on his lip, gaze flickering between them and Mac’s face.

“I mean…If you hadn’t accidentally come into Paddy’s that time last week, thinking we were just another hot gay bar that you got recommended ‘cause we’re niche,” said Dennis. “You didn’t even know that was _us_ , man. Like, you didn’t even know that me and Charlie and Dee were all working there.”

“Right,” said Mac slowly. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? Why would I think you were all running a fucking gay bar?”

“Well, exactly. That’s my point!” said Dennis. “What if we _didn’t_ run a gay bar? You’d been back in Philly already for a few nights, and you didn’t so much as give us a fucking phone call, man. No warning you were gonna be in town for a couple weeks, no heads up. No anything. We hadn’t heard shit from you in…years, I think.”

“So what, dude?” he asked, a little more aggressive. He was starting to feel a little like Dennis was backing him into a corner, right where he’d always fucking hated to be and right where Dennis fucking loved to put him for that exact same reason. Like a wild thing, it made him want to bare his teeth. “What are you saying?”

“Say you went somewhere else that night! What if you went to the Alibi Room, or Harvey’s,” said Dennis. “If you never walked into our goddamn bar, and ran into us by accident, were you gonna look us up and tell us you were home? Ever?”

Dennis’s breathing was sharper when he paused, his face screwed up with tension. He looked stressed out and mad and a little bit hurt underneath and Mac watched him for a long moment, silent and considering. Taking in the irritation rolling off of Dennis in palpable waves. He watched as Dennis’s expression broke when he swallowed.

“Ever?” Dennis pressed again. Softer this time.

Mac frowned.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, at last. “I wanna tell you that I would’ve, ‘cause you obviously want me to, but I don’t know. Maybe, I guess. After a while. After my dad was home and everything was settled, I might have stopped by once or twice before heading back to the city—”

“‘Maybe?’” Dennis echoed hoarsely. “Just ‘maybe?’ Come on, dude.”

“I don’t know!” Mac said, floundering, turning redder. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know!”

Dennis leaned in a little to yell, and Mac did too — getting in each other’s faces, angry and loud.

“How about you’re sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for over a decade! How about that?”

“I’m _sorry_! Okay? I’m sorry for going somewhere to be gay and not get jacked up on the street over it, excuse me—”

“Don’t do that! Don’t fucking turn this around like I’m the asshole—”

“Then stop acting like an asshole!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

They fell back in their seats, crossing their arms and breathing heavier. Dennis glared at him and Mac glared right back — on and on, until Mac leaned down to slurp up the last of his drink and fumbled to find it. His tongue waved around, looking for his straw; after a second, Dennis snorted. Mac glared for a split second longer before he laughed a little too. He slammed his empty drink down on the coffee table and slumped in a heap down into his chair.

“Goddamn it,” said Mac, rubbing at his forehead.

“Yeah,” said Dennis. He glanced at Mac out of the corner of his eye, and sighed. “Look, man. I guess — I never said this before you left, you know, but, like…I get it. I get why you ran off.”

“I wasn’t _running away_ —” Mac interrupted, but Dennis shushed him and steamrolled over him.

“And I’m glad…I’m glad you got to be open about it, I guess.” Dennis scratched awkwardly at the side of his face. “Uh, yeah.”

Mac sighed.

“I guess it _was_ kind of a dick move to just drop you guys completely,” he said at last. “I shouldn’t have stopped calling to check in and shit.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Dennis muttered, kicking at one of the coffee table legs.

Mac laughed. “You guys did pretty well without me too. So it worked out cool for everybody.”

Dennis rolled his eyes, but he was smiling again. All softly, his chin tucked into his chest. Mac grinned at him. Dennis glanced up and offered some of his smile back.

“Look, I gotta get down to the bar pretty soon,” said Dennis, after a pause.

He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs for a second, like he was hesitating before he pushed himself up to his feet. Mac heaved himself up too and started walking him to the door; Dennis glanced back at him. Whatever he seemed about to say, though, he suppressed into a little smile, and waited until they got to the foyer. Mac opened the door for him, and Dennis turned to face him, leaning back against the frame. It pressed Dennis into his space just right; Mac was standing closer to him now than he’d been since he pushed away from him in the back office last night, and his breath caught momentarily as he took in the lack of distance between them. Dennis cleared his throat.

“So…Friends? Right?”

Mac hurried to nod. “Friends, yeah. Yeah.”

“Cool,” said Dennis.

He hesitated, then reached out for him; Mac leaned in without thinking and hugged him back, tight. Dennis didn’t let go for the first few seconds after they should have, and Mac swayed back closer to him, tucking his face into Dennis’s shoulder. He just breathed him in for a long moment.

“Okay, shit.” Dennis coughed a little and started to disentangle from Mac, and he hastened to step back too. Dennis was studying the floor intently, forehead creased. “So, uh…”

“Friends,” Mac said softly, and Dennis looked up at him. Mac flashed a little smile.

“You running off did suck, you know,” Dennis said on a deep breath. “Uh, you know. Fuck you for doing it, by the way, but uh…it did suck. Just because Charlie was such a bitch the whole time missing you.”

He was bright red. Mac grinned and knocked his elbow into Dennis’s.

“Yeah, he’s an idiot. Totally soft.”

“Soft as shit. Not like you and me,” Dennis agreed.

Dennis nodded, watching him. Mac bit his lip. He didn’t dare, but he really wanted to pull Dennis in for another hug, and this time keep him crushed against his chest until the sun went back down. Until they could get trashed and see how many memories they could recreate in a night; until they could go somewhere and test how strong their convictions were, their promises to stay _just friends_.

“Okay, great,” Mac said shortly. Suddenly getting Dennis out of his house as soon as possible was the most important thing in the world; if he stayed here any longer, Mac was going to do something stupid.

“Okay,” Dennis said. He took a step backward, down onto the porch. He looked damn pretty backlit by the sun, looking up at Mac and biting his lip. Hesitating for just a moment. “Cool. I’ll see you around, Mac.”

Mac put his hand to the door. “See you.”

They looked at each other for a split second longer; then Dennis turned away, and Mac shut the door behind him. He took a deep breath, eyes slipping shut, before heading back into the kitchen.

“So, Mom,” he said loudly, clapping his hands together. “What are your plans for the day, huh? What can we get up to?”

“I’m gonna watch TV,” she said. “You’re gonna leave me alone.”

Mac’s face fell. Without looking at him, his mom scraped her chair back and disappeared with her lit cigarette into the living room. Mac sighed and started to clean up from their breakfast.

He stripped down after, ready for that shower at last. After his visit from Dennis, he felt like he could use it even more than before. He let the water heat up while he gathered up his laundry, figuring he might as well do a load since he hadn’t gotten around to it yet since coming back to Philly. After, he stepped under the blazing stream and started to wash himself down; there wouldn’t be much time before the water started to cool off, he remembered that about this house. He massaged shampoo through his hair, procrastinating in what little ways he could before he had to soap down.

Looking down at his body was an exercise in staying calm. He had never been especially good at that — and he wasn’t any better now, getting shot through with spikes of thrill and want when he took in all the glitter sticking to his skin.

It had really gotten _everywhere_. Dennis’s body glitter, which had been smeared across both cheeks and down his chest and happy trail, had spread all over Mac’s chest even under where his shirt had covered, as well as all over his abs, and across his thighs and ass and dotted up his arms. Mac took it in for a long moment, then sighed. He got to work scrubbing himself down with the loofah.

The water ran cold before he got most of the body glitter off, and even still he knew he would never be completely rid of it. Glitter stuck around like that: All over the place and for way too long after you tried to get clean. He would be finding it still stuck on his clothes when he was forty.

He remembered that the glitter on Dennis’s cheeks probably made a mess of Mac’s own face, and he shut off the water so he could look in the mirror over the sink while he washed it off. The glass was still steamy when he wrapped a towel around his waist, and he wiped the fog off with his forearm so he could see his reflection. He splashed water on his face and scrubbed at his cheeks, first with soap then harder with a towel.

Mac paused when he saw himself. A small, high whine escaped from him without wanting it to. Tentatively, he raised his hand and pressed two fingers to his neck.

He had three bruises sucked into his throat: Two mild ones near his pulse on the left side, and a thicker, darker one spidering out on the right. All perfectly shaped to the fit of Dennis’s mouth. All varyingly sensitive when Mac pressed down on them, a centralized ache of his blood. He gave another soft groan. It was honestly nothing compared to how it really felt when Dennis was pulling the soft skin of his throat between his teeth, and God did he wish that was happening again.

After a moment he blinked, remembering himself. He worked to refocus on what he was doing, double-checking his washed face; his cheeks were rubbed raw, but mostly glitter-free. He could probably do a better job, but he didn’t want to look at his reflection anymore. He threw the hand towel he was using down on the edge of the sink and left to go get dressed.

It was ridiculous, Mac thought as he got dressed. Dennis was just some guy, indistinguishable from any other man on the planet. Mac had slept with enough of them to know that if it was bruises that he wanted, he could get better and bigger ones from someone else. Just find any leather bar on the strip, he’d be good to go. Really, he should skip Paddy’s tonight altogether. Him plus Dennis plus alcohol clearly spelled trouble, and risking that the same night they promised to stay platonic seemed like a bad fucking idea. He could find a different bar and find someone less dangerous to throw him around tonight.

Mac threw on a different pair of sweats than before and a sleeveless t-shirt with a wolf print that said _ALPHA MALE_ in big block letters around it. No matter what he did later, he had some work to do this afternoon anyway.

His mom was slumped in the living room when he went back downstairs, no doubt where she would vegetate for the rest of the day and possibly well into the night. Mac grabbed the family laptop and took it into the kitchen instead, where he sat by the window, grabbed Poppins so he could curl up on the table next to him, and started looking for jobs for his dad.

That was the whole reason that he was back in town in the first place, finding his dad some employment, but Mac had been pretty busy doing just about anything else lately — mostly, hanging around Paddy’s and reconnecting with the gang, or with his pants down somewhere getting laid. He had some catching up to do.

Frustratingly, a lot of places wanted him to disclose any criminal record. Mac lied on a few applications, but eventually he dug up a list of places that were open to hiring ex-cons. He sent off a resume to a few of the jobs on that list, under his dad’s name. There weren’t a ton of openings in the immediate area that were comfortable with taking on felons.

It was nearing three by the time Mac decided he was finished, long past bored. He got up to let Poppins out and grab a snack from the pantry, then sent one final e-mail to a restaurant asking if they would take on ex-cons since there wasn’t that much information on the website. He only realized after he sent it that he’d been using his e-mail the whole time instead of making up a throwaway account under his dad’s name. He quickly set one up, but didn’t get much further; after that he wandered off and got busy eating Fritos by the handful and watching funny videos on YouTube. There seemed to be a never-ending cache of people pulling dumb stunts and hurting themselves, which was awesome.

Around five-thirty, he started making chili for him and his mom. She grumbled from the living room about him making a mess, and he cranked on the radio to drown it out and for something to hum along to while he cooked.

“So, Mom, I was thinking,” said Mac over their dinners later, leaning forward eagerly. “We could maybe have a quiet night in tonight! Just you and me, what do you think? We haven’t done that since the first night I was back. It could be fun! We could rent a movie, maybe make some popcorn together. I can pick you up a fresh pack of cigarettes. What do you think?”

She looked up at him, finally. Mac watched her hopefully.

“What were you doing all day?” she asked finally. “You were glued to your goddamn computer for hours. I hope you were looking for a fucking place to stay.”

Mac blinked at her, startled. His smile faded, and he leaned back a little.

“A place to stay? What are you talking about?” He gestured around the kitchen. “Mom, I have a place—”

“You can’t stay here,” his mom said. “You need to move out. You’re, what? Twenty-eight?”

“What are you saying, Mom?” he strained. “I moved out of the goddamn state when I was barely eighteen! I’ve only been back in my room for a week!”

“And all you’ve done since then is make a mess of my kitchen and spoil the shit out of our piece of crap dog!” she said.

“But…but you need me,” he said uncertainly. “I’ve been taking care of you, Mom. I cook for you, and I’ve been feeding Poppins all of his meals. I do all the cleaning, and I got — I got the sink working again over the weekend, remember?”

“I know how to fix a goddamn sink!”

“I know that,” he said, as patiently as he could, “but this way it gives you some time to relax, you know. You work so hard all the time, I thought you could use the chance to, like, take a load off. Take some downtime. Between work and getting ready for dad to—”

“I don’t want downtime, and I don’t want you always hovering and suffocating me!”

Mac sighed. He picked at his napkin, digging a tiny rip in it with his nail and then worrying at the tear he’d made. Soon it would be nearly split in two.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. “I’ll get a job, if you want me to spend some more time out of the house.” He brightened. “Hey! Maybe me and dad can work together! I can find somewhere that will hire the both of us! Wouldn’t that work out great? And we could bond, and he could see how good I am at doing stuff, and you’d have more time to yourself which is good. Wouldn’t that be perfect?”

Mac grinned at his mom. She looked at him for a long moment. Eventually, she gave a vague grunt, pushed back her chair, and wandered back into the living room.

“Great!” he said excitedly. “I love you too, Mom! So is that a yes to doing a movie night together, or what?”

As soon as he was done with his dinner and had put the leftovers in the fridge and dumped all the dishes into the sink to deal with some other time, Mac grabbed the laptop and settled into the couch next to his mom. After a brief tussle over the remote, which she won, she flipped on what appeared to be an exceptionally violent reality TV show, and Mac paid just enough attention to keep up with the drama while he started looking up minimum wage gigs with more than one open position. Anything that wanted to hire two guys as muscle would be a plus, he thought.

The reality show ended, and his mom flipped over to Law & Order. Mac had seen every episode at least four times, because they were always playing at all hours of the day, but it provided vaguely interesting background noise while he worked.

It should have been relatively easy to find a job, or so Mac had figured; he was just looking to pick up a few shifts until the month was out, when he would head back to New York; he would give most of the shifts to his dad anyway. He didn’t need anything permanent for himself, or even long-term; he didn’t even need a ton of hours. Just enough to give him some pocket money while he stayed on the bar scene, something that kept him out of the house long enough to appease his mom.

Job hunting turned out to be even worse for short-term positions, somehow. Everyone wanted him to start within a few days and they wanted him to pick up a lot of hours immediately; but even that didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that almost no one was hiring for two.

Mac gave up, eventually, deciding he was done for the day. He shut the laptop and slumped further down into the couch, arms crossed, to settle in to watch TV.

 

He stayed home for a few days, hanging out with his mom and texting Charlie like everything was cool, and Charlie didn’t even ask if he was avoiding them, so it seemed to be working. Mostly, Mac spent his time on the computer looking for work, sitting on the couch next to his mom and watching whatever channels she decided to flip to. He cooked all her meals, since she could only be guaranteed to fetch dinner and snacks for herself. He spent his mornings cleaning up the house, clearing up the beer cans that he and his mom had crushed while watching TV the night before, and in the afternoons, he looked for work.

But the search just got plain discouraging after a few days of doing nothing else. It was nearing eight p.m.; he should have been just arriving at a bar by now, if he had stuck with his schedule from the first couple of weeks he’d been back in the city, and his knee was beginning to bounce. He didn’t mind hanging out around the house, generally, but the urge to go see his friends had been growing in the days without them. Sitting around cooped up was getting to him anyway. Still, he should really avoid the bar, but —

But. He kind of wanted to go hang out. The desire to go see the gang had been growing like an increasingly annoying itch under his skin the past several days, and by now it was at its crescendo. Mac paused, deliberating between the fun thing and the right thing, for all of two seconds.

“Okay, I’m going out,” Mac announced, moving the laptop onto the coffee table and clapping his hands on his thighs. It was the first thing either of them had said since lunch.

His mom didn’t even turn to look at him. She grunted.

“Great, so you don’t mind that I bail on hanging out! Awesome,” said Mac. “It’s just for one night, I swear. Okay, I’ll be back down in a bit, I’ll come say goodbye.”

She said nothing except to grumble at him angrily when he briefly blocked the TV from view to scuttle upstairs.

So what, Mac reasoned, up in his room throwing on something from his closet. So what if he went in and had a drink or two? Wouldn’t it be weirder, really, to keep avoiding the bar; wouldn’t that be more suspicious? It could potentially tip off Charlie that something had gone down, or suggest to Dennis that he was uncomfortable being around him now. It was really better for everyone if he _did_ go in to Paddy’s, and worse if he didn’t. Potentially.

He found a pair of jeans with minimal rips and pulled them on, then headed down to grab something from the fridge. He didn’t really need to pregame, because Dennis or Charlie always gave him free drinks no matter how much Sweet Dee complained about it, but it never hurt to show up a little tipsy just in case. He slugged back a couple gulps of vodka, pushed the big bottle back in the freezer, and scooped up Poppins on his way back into the living room so he could drop the dog in his vacated seat. It was always best to have someone watching Poppins, or he tended to run off for months at a time.

“Okay, Mom,” said Mac, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll be back later.”

She grunted. Mac raised his eyebrows.

“Okay,” he said after a moment, when he got no response. He clapped his hands together. “Great, cool. Bye.”

It was a lot easier slipping through the dark streets towards Paddy’s than it had been even a couple of weeks ago, that first time; already, the route there felt familiar, like a path he’d treaded a million times.

There wasn’t a line outside per se, just a couple of guys who had apparently bumped into each other in the doorway and who were threatening to bash each other’s faces in in retribution. They were standing right in front of the entrance and, thus, blocking a couple of increasingly-loud complainers from getting in around them.

Mac slipped down the alley and headed in the back way instead. That felt like one fight he was better off not getting in the middle of.

The bar had a good crowd milling around inside. Mac vaguely recognized most of the patrons, mostly regulars who liked to come in and flirt with Dennis or with each other. Most of the excess, actually, seemed to be women — women, he noted, who were either scattered around the room talking to each other or crowded around the bar chatting with Dee. He raised his eyebrows when he saw them, momentarily stopped in his tracks, before Charlie called out to him from across the room.

“Hey, Mac.” He waved. “Take a seat anywhere.”

Mac waved back at him and started for his usual place at the counter. He paused, though, when he was almost there; Dennis was behind the bar, as he usually was so he could compete with Dee for tips, and Mac wasn’t sure that sliding up in front of him would be the best move.

But he only faltered for a second before Dennis glanced up and caught his eye. He looked surprised to see him for the briefest of seconds before his lips turned up in a grin.

“Hey, man,” Dennis said easily.

Mac slipped into his usual stool at the end of the bar and laid his elbows out on the counter.

“Hey,” he said.

He tried to hold Dennis’s stare, and even succeeded for a moment before he started studying the wood counter instead. He could see Dennis shifting in front of him from the corner of his eye.

Dee jostled into Dennis’s arm, making them both look up at her. She grinned, jerking a thumb over toward the little crowd she had amassed.

“You see that, boners?” she asked, too loud. “Old Dee’s not too bad. She can get business as well as any—”

“Dee, these women are here because you’re the only chick working in a gay bar for fifty miles and they heard you’ll do anything for a goddamn tip,” Dennis said sharply. “Do the math. Will you please go away?”

Dee shrugged. “Whatever. My tip jar is finally getting back to normal, dick.”

“I don’t care,” Dennis said over her.

She slugged him in the arm and was gone. Dennis was shaking his head, turning back to Mac, and they swapped exasperated glances. For a moment, things were normal — just him, and Dennis, and their shared hatred of Dee. Then Mac remembered himself, and he looked down, twisting his fingers together on the bar.

But Dennis said, easy and casual like it was nothing, “Your usual beer?” and he was already pushing an open bottle of it over the counter toward him when Mac looked up. Dennis smiled at him. Mac looked back at him, lips parted. After a couple of seconds, he broke out grinning, startled and warm.

“Yeah,” said Mac. “Thanks. God, so Dee’s a bitch, huh?”

“She always is.”

Dennis reached out and pushed the bottle a little closer to him. When Mac grabbed for it, his fingertips brushed Dennis’s knuckles. They shared another quiet smile.

Mac pulled his arm back and took a long drink, and Dennis just watched him. Then all at once Dennis started laughing, soft and melodic and warm. Mac pressed the rim of his beer into his lower lip, fighting back a smile — but after a second, Dennis caught his eye. Mac’s cheeks tinged red, and he, too, finally started to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [x](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/180897016710)


	5. if we were meant to be, we would have been by now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis was dressed a little less provocatively than he’d been yet, or maybe his tight wife beater top just seemed a lot less ostentatious after seeing him sporting bare chest under a flannel the other night, especially after getting to touch him. His jeans were even relatively well-fitting, not absurdly tight. It was a little easier to avoid getting distracted by him and concentrate.
> 
> But God, Mac’s gaze felt magnetized to him. It was really unfair. He was a few drinks in and he couldn’t ignore the pulse of heat that coursed through him when he watched Dennis spinning around to fill drink orders, flirting with the men at the bar. He more or less had been ignoring those full-body responses, but it was difficult.
> 
> Mac realized he was staring and jolted guiltily, looking away. It was none of his business who Dennis hit on. He had to stop thinking with his dick and start focusing on acting normal around him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for lesbophobic language x

Mac piled the last of the dirty plates into the dish rack and tossed the towel down next to it. He turned around, leaning back against the counter, and took a moment to assess the rest of the kitchen. He mentally checked a few more things off his to-do list, working out what needed to get taken care of next. His mom was currently occupying the living room, which took vacuuming off the short list; he thought about running to the grocery store to find something for dinner, but he knew if he left the house, he would just end up picking up a pack of smokes and going to see what Charlie was doing.

They’d started hanging out in the afternoons every other day or so, usually just showing up at each other’s doors unannounced and sitting around for hours, playing video games in Mac’s room or huffing paint while they watched wrestling on Charlie’s couch. It was stupidly easy to fall back into old routines, and it turned out that things that were fun at sixteen were still fun at twenty-eight. The only difference now was that they had a lot more things to talk about besides which classes they were failing. They usually killed time like that, getting high or crushing beers and talking about nothing, until it was time for Charlie to go to work. Mac would show up at Paddy’s a few hours after him, when things over there were starting to get busy.

The more he thought about giving up and going to Charlie’s place, the more appealing the idea sounded. He was already looking forward to going in to the bar later and coaxing everybody into doing shots.

“Hey Mom,” said Mac, leaning against the doorway to the living room and crossing his arms. “Would it bother you if I vacuumed in here?”

“Too loud,” she said.

Mac sighed. “But it’s the last thing I have to—”

“It’s too loud!”

He put up his hands. “Alright, alright. Then I’m going out.”

It was only five, but he was bored. Besides, everyone else had been down at Paddy’s for hours already, so it wouldn’t be that weird if he showed up. He took a quick shower and dressed fast, pulling on a pair of jeans with rips at the knees and one of the graphic t-shirts he’d gotten from Goodwill that said something about the Bronx Zoo. His mom called for him to pick up more beer as he was walking out the door, and he waved over his shoulder in acknowledgement.

There were one or two strangers in the bar when Mac got there, pressed into the back booths and chatting; otherwise, the place was empty aside from the gang. Dennis, Charlie, and Dee were sitting at the high tables, spiritedly engaged in an argument that seemed to have something to do with fireworks and guns, but they broke off when Dennis spotted Mac and waved at him across the room.

“Hey, Mac,” he called.

The others turned around and muttered their own greetings. Dennis was drinking a beer already, but he got up to go fish another out from behind the bar. Mac slid into a spare seat at Dennis’s table, and Dennis uncapped the new bottle to pass over to him, along with a bright smile.

“Hey,” said Charlie, reaching out to bump his fist. “You’re here early.”

“You guys were here,” said Mac, shrugging.

“But we work here,” Dee pointed out, tipping her head to the side. “We have to be here.”

“Right,” Mac agreed, slowly. He pulled his beer closer.

“Okay, whatever,” said Dee. She rolled her eyes. “Like I was saying, you cannot set off a firework with a gun, it just won’t work. Scientifically—”

“Dee, come on. We’re past that,” said Dennis, waving his hand at her. Dee rolled her eyes, arms spreading in exasperation, but Dennis and Charlie ignored her to turn to Mac instead. “What’s going on, man? You up to anything good?”

“Besides hanging out with my mom? Not really.”

“I get that,” said Charlie, nodding. “Well, that’s why you’re here, bro!”

Mac grinned. He looked around at all of them.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Well, we were just about to start getting ready for the crowd that’ll be coming in a couple of hours,” said Charlie, glancing around the bar. “Do you wanna help us set up?”

Mac’s gaze was stuck on Dennis, but he was talking to Charlie anyway when he said, “No, not really.”

Dennis smiled at him, big and goofy and pretty. Mac arched an eyebrow teasingly back at him.

The others all got up after a few minutes of bitching and moaning about work. Mac’s attention followed Dennis in an indistinct, half-zoned out way around the room, as he cleaned up and got things ready for the crowd later. Dennis barely glanced at him except when Mac waved him down to get more beer, but Mac had a feeling that Dennis knew he was looking at him anyway — or maybe he always stuck his ass out that much when he leaned over, he couldn’t really be sure. Mac couldn’t remember him doing that in high school or in the weeks he’d been hanging around the bar, but then again, Mac was always drunk when he was in here too. He easily could have missed something.

Dennis was dressed a little less provocatively than he’d been yet, or maybe his tight wife beater top just seemed a lot less ostentatious after seeing him sporting bare chest under a flannel the other night, especially since he’d gotten to touch him. His jeans were even relatively well-fitting, not absurdly tight. It was a little easier to avoid getting distracted by him and concentrate when he was like this.

Dennis swapped him out for another drink, and Mac looked up at him. Their hands brushed when Mac reached for the bottle, but neither of them pulled away immediately. Dennis’s thumb swiped against his own for a split second, and he cracked a smile before drawing his arm back. All through the evening, he’d been leaving immediately after giving Mac another drink, busy with working and barely even having the time to stop by to exchange a sentence or two; but this time he lingered. Mac looked up at him, lips parted slightly. Dennis leaned his hip against the table. Mac raised his eyebrows.

“You know, you’re going to have to start paying for your drinks,” said Dennis eventually.

Mac barely fought back a laugh. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”

“Why’s that?” Dennis repeated incredulously. “Uh, because you’ve been drinking for free for a while now, Mac. It’s starting to cut into our profits.”

“I thought only Sweet Dee cared about profits,” said Mac. He tipped back some of the beer, but mostly he just considered the drink while he sloshed it around the bottle. He flicked a glance back up at Dennis.

“I like having a place to live,” said Dennis. “Call me crazy.”

But he folded his arms on the table and leaned in to loom his smile close. Mac thought about how easy it would be to reach out and do something, anything. Wrap an arm around Dennis’s waist and pull him in closer, or even just touch the back of his hand. Easy.

Mac flicked his eyes up to Dennis’s.

“Do some shots with me,” he said, low and coaxing.

Dennis hesitated for a long time before he pulled away, saying, “I can’t, man. I have shit to do. Got a business to run and all that.”

“That hasn’t been stopping you lately,” Mac pointed out.

“Exactly. I have to start doing my job eventually…My bank is so picky about overdraft fees and my several overdue bills.”

Mac laughed. Dennis tapped him lightly on the arm with one knuckle and left to go finish up whatever he was doing behind the bar.

He still brought Mac drinks whenever he seemed to notice he was done with the previous one, and he started being attentive enough that Mac didn’t have to flag him down. Dennis was still insisting that he was busy but he paused for a minute or two when he brought Mac his drinks, stopping to chat for a little before he said he had to go back to work.

“How are you settling back into being in Philly?” Dennis asked, an hour or so later as he dawdled with an elbow on the table.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been a few weeks,” Dennis said, with a little laugh. “Come on, you can’t tell me that you’ve been spending all your time hanging around the bar.”

“No,” said Mac. “Sometimes I go home to get some sleep.”

He grinned. Dennis laughed, reaching to knock his hand playfully against Mac’s wrist. When he pulled his arm back, his smile softened.

“Nah, I’m kicking some ideas around,” said Mac, watching his hand start to scratch at the label on his half-full beer. “I’ve got a few things that I’m keeping busy with.”

Dennis reached out and tugged a little on the bottle, and Mac relinquished it so Dennis could take a long pull of it. He slipped it back into Mac’s fist after; it was impossible, when Mac raised it back to his lips, not to think about how Dennis’s mouth had just been there a few moments before. Dennis was looking at him with a strange expression on his face, a little bit like he was thinking the same thing.

“Like what?” Dennis asked.

Mac shrugged.

“I’m doing some stuff for my dad right now,” he said. “And any time I’m not working on some shit for him, there’s always something to do around the house anyway. Like, my mom really needs me.”

Dennis raised his eyebrows. He’d commandeered Mac’s beer again and was just swinging it between his lax fingers, contemplating Mac. At last finally he opened his mouth, and there was something heavily disbelieving in his tone when he deadpanned, “Really?”

“Yep,” Mac said cheerfully. Dennis pulled the beer away when Mac reached out for it, and Mac poked him in the ribs until Dennis curled over to giggle, and Mac could grab it while his guards were down. Dennis grinned at him, even when he stopped laughing. “She’s so busy working double shifts at Jiffy Lube and, you know, making sure everything’s ready for when my dad gets home. So I’m doing a really good job, like, taking care of her and Poppins, and fixing stuff around the house.”

“I thought your mom was really good at shit like that,” said Dennis mildly. “Didn’t she completely rewire your living room when we were kids?”

“Well, she _can_ fix stuff around the house,” said Mac exasperatedly. “She just works so hard. She appreciates having an extra hand around to help her handle everything.”

Dennis looked at him for a long moment.

“Sure, if you need,” Dennis said eventually, nodding. Mac grinned. Dennis shook his head, smiling a little, and when he lightly tapped Mac on the arm, his touch lingered. “So, you’re not getting on each other’s nerves too much, then?”

“No. Why would we?”

“You hated being around your house when we were in high school,” said Dennis curiously. “I thought that’s why you were always crashing with me and Charlie.”

 “Well, I guess,” Mac said hesitantly. “I don’t really mind it though…I’m going out practically every night anyway.”

Dennis raised his eyebrows. “ _You_ don’t really mind?” he echoed.

Mac grimaced. “Well…Mom’s kind of been dropping hints that she thinks I have too much free time.”

“She thinks you’re freeloading,” Dennis supplied.

“She does not!” Mac protested. “Okay! She just thinks I’m not, like, taking advantage of all my potential! Okay, listen. I’ve been thinking it anyway, you know, I’m spending all this time trying to find jobs for my dad and I’m running up my credit anyway. My limit sucks, dude, and I just got fired last month from where I was working in Chelsea anyway—”

“Mac,” Dennis said loudly, “Mac! Calm down, dude. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.”

He was patting hastily at Mac’s hand where it was spread flat on the table, trying to soothe him. Mac trailed off, breathing a little heavy, and Dennis ran his hand up Mac’s arm and squeezed.

“Calm down,” he said again. Mac swallowed; after a moment, he nodded at him. Dennis caught his eye, making sure he was a little more relaxed, before continuing. “So, you’re looking for work for yourself, too?”

Mac shrugged a little. He pulled his hand out from under Dennis’s and twisted them together in his lap.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding jerkily. He exhaled messily. “I just figured that if I was out of the house more during the day, too, she wouldn’t…I don’t know…make me go back to the city before my dad came home. I wanna be here when he gets out.”

“I get that. That makes sense.”

Dennis was watching him, but Mac was still looking down at his hands. He saw, in that imprecise, fuzzy way from the corner of his eye, when Dennis started scratching stiltedly at the side of his face.

“Uh, look, man,” Dennis said at last, and then stopped. Mac glanced up at him. Dennis took a long time to meet his gaze, but when he did for half a second, he let out a little laugh. “What if you maybe, uh, took a job with us?”

He watched his fingers drum on the table for a few seconds before looking back up at Mac, biting his lip. Mac blinked at him.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Dennis said. “You’re here all the time anyway, always showing up way before most of the crowd does…And you help us do things here and there when we need it, and you need to get out of your house anyway so it might as well be here. Why not?”

Dennis was so fidgety when he got anxious. He was a live wire, shifting his weight around between his feet and scratching at phantom itches on his arm and glancing everywhere around the room, including at Mac — he looked at Mac both more often than necessary and somehow, at the same time, not nearly enough considering they were having a somewhat serious conversation. Mac watched him for a long few moments, trying to work out if he was being sincere, and whether the whole thing was a good idea anyway.

“Really?” Mac said at last.

“Yeah, well…We’ve been kind of shorthanded since Terrell left anyway,” said Dennis offhandedly, shrugging his shoulder.

It didn’t seem like it should have been a good idea, Mac thought; hanging around with Dennis more wouldn’t make things any easier, but at the same time wouldn’t committing to seeing him also prove that things were as normal as they could have been, just like they both wanted? Either way, it didn’t seem like an accident that their separate problems would so easily make a solution for each other: Mac needed a job, and Paddy’s needed some help. Dennis wanted Mac to hang around some more, and Mac wanted an excuse to stick around more often, too. It fit together. They fit.

It also really sucked when he was hanging out with one of them and they had to leave early to go to work; he hated to stop home, but it felt awkward to tag along with them to Paddy’s before regular bar hours even though they were just hanging out there anyway. Dennis wanted him to be a part of that, and so did he.

Mac drank another long swallow of beer. He looked up at Dennis.

“Okay,” he said at last.

Dennis pulled away a little, looking startled.

“Really?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Mac, and Dennis split into a huge grin. His cheeks went a little pink when he smiled that hard, Mac noticed; it was a color that seemed to suit him. “Why not? I mean, it would be good to have some extra money. And I get to hang out with you guys more!”

“Yeah, true,” said Dennis, fading into a softer, warmer smile. Mac beamed back at him, and they just looked at each other for a while, until Dennis jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Well uh, look. I have to go tend bar and shit, ‘cause people are waiting on me. But um…cool.”

“Okay,” said Mac easily.

Dennis hesitated. Then he rapped his knuckles on the table, half-turning away.

“Okay,” he echoed. “Let me know if you need a refill.”

He left. Mac watched him for a couple of minutes, though, as he started filling drink orders, flashing flirty smiles at the guys queued up at the counter and chatting with hopefuls while he made their drinks. He didn’t look back over at Mac, but Mac couldn’t stop smiling anyway.

 

“Oh, good,” his mom said when he came down the next day, dressed before noon and grabbing his house keys off the hook by the door. “You’re leaving.”

“Yeah! I got a job,” he said excitedly.

“Good for you,” she said mildly. She really sounded more like she was congratulating herself.

“Yep. It’s just part-time,” said Mac quickly, “but it’s a few days a week and it should keep me pretty busy.”

She grunted in a way he was pretty sure meant, _That’s great news_.

He waited, but she didn’t say anything else. She was smoking a cigarette and staring at the TV screen, even though it was turned off. Mac watched her, hesitating for a few more seconds, before it became clear that the conversation was over and he turned and headed for the door instead.

She stopped complaining so much about him always being around the house, then, now that he was out working from seven to three, and often leaving the house earlier and staying at the bar later just to hang out and get drunk with the others. Ostensibly, he had been assigned door duty and all he had to do was check IDs. Mac preferred to use his position to assess security threats and occasionally carry up kegs from the basement, because everyone else complained that they were too heavy to do by themselves and he kept losing the argument over it. Mostly, though, Mac liked the way Dennis’s attention lingered on his biceps when he hauled them up the last couple of stairs.

His first few shifts were very easy. The only times that he was actually busy scanning IDs was between nine and eleven, but before and after that he could mostly hang around with the others and catch the stragglers as they came. The twins were usually kept fairly busy making drinks, fighting over getting tips and flirting with the hottest people who showed up, but Charlie had a ton of time to waste. In between cleaning up major spills and accidents, he often kept Mac company. That mostly involved getting tipsy and laughing at Dennis and Dee from across the room.

It was easy. It was nice.

The bar was quiet on Monday night. It usually was, except for the odd college kid who took Margarita Monday a bit too seriously.

The college crowd _loved_ Dennis. Not that Mac was keeping tabs on it, but it wasn’t exactly a secret either. Even more than the guys their age that came around, the twenty-one and -two year olds that swung by liked to compliment everything from his hair to the way he laughed, and they liked to compete to needle free drinks out of him; they almost never successfully got one, but that never stopped them from trying, night after night. Dennis had always had a thing for younger women so it wasn’t a complete shock that he liked the attention of younger men, too.

The college girls liked Dee, too. The twins didn’t make a lot of money Monday through Wednesday, when Paddy’s was frequented almost exclusively by old drunks and young broke college students with no idea where to find other gay kids around campus and so they resorted to gay bars in the city, but they sure got a lot of phone numbers on those nights. Not that Mac, of course, was counting.

Mac, in fact, was studiously doing his job checking IDs at the door. Already he had caught out a few who had “forgotten” their licenses “in their car,” and who would “be right back” but mysteriously never showed up again after disappearing around the corner.

Dennis was leaning over the bar, laughing at something that the guy in front of him was saying. The guy looked vaguely familiar; Mac thought he himself might have hit on him before, maybe. He was certainly Mac’s type, built and ripped and with a sleeve of tattoos creeping up his arms underneath his t-shirt. He certainly seemed to be _Dennis’s_ type, based on how he kept laughing with his whole body whenever the guy cracked a joke. It was the type of laughing where he threw his head back, but his body wasn’t shaking — Dennis’s fake laughter, an almost-perfect replica of the real thing with only a few minor details missing, which only someone who knew him well could see. Or maybe just someone who had been on the receiving end of both versions. It was a laugh that meant Dennis was looking to get laid by whoever he was laying it on thick to.

Mac realized he was staring and jolted guiltily, looking away. It was none of his business who Dennis hit on. He checked another ID, and waved the girl through.

But God, Mac’s gaze felt magnetized to Dennis. It was really unfair. Mac looked over at him again, a little helpless against it. He was a few drinks in and he couldn’t ignore the pulse of heat that coursed through him when he watched Dennis spinning around to fill drink orders, flirting with the men at the bar. He more or less had been ignoring those full-body responses, but it was difficult when his guards were down.

It wasn’t just that him and Mac had kissed. That alone, he could probably ignore. He had kissed lots of guys before, kissed and then not done anything else with them. Hell, he’d kissed Charlie before, in high school, and Dennis too; during odd rounds of spin-the-bottle or when they get super high and wanted practice, and it didn’t mean anything, it was fine. Those were things that Mac knew and accepted and never thought about, because it didn’t matter.

The difficult part was that the last thing he remembered wasn’t just Dennis’s lips on his, but the whole rest of it, too: The soft moans he’d made against Mac’s ear when Mac ran his hands up his chest and over the sensitive insides of his thighs. The sway of Dennis’s hips into his. How he looked from barely an inch away, biting his lip and silently urging Mac to crowd even closer. How Mac’s own hands looked, spreading glitter deftly across the sharp cut of Dennis’s waistline. How Dennis had glanced over his shoulder when he tugged Mac along into the back office, a flicker of a smile ghosting across his lips. How smug he looked when he leaned in to shut the door behind them, pressing Mac against it in the process. The sure way that he grabbed Mac’s ass, like it was his to do what he wanted with, and without any regard for whether or not he should be doing something like that in the first place. The equally confident way he put his mouth to Mac’s neck and made sharp red bruises rise on his skin, and how Mac’s stomach had dipped for days and days after the fact when he pressed his fingers to the spots in the bathroom mirror.

Mac swallowed and hastily looked around to the person who had just come up to the door, checking their ID quickly and then waving them through without really reading it. This was just a really, really bad case of blue balls, he reasoned. Just because he didn’t get to get off — this was pathetic. If he had just had a goddamn chance to cum, he could stop thinking with his dick and start focusing on acting normal around Dennis again.

A small fight was breaking out by one of the tables, and Mac wandered over to tell them to shut up or get lost; they pulled away from each other, muttering. Mac sighed and leaned back against the table when they both peeled off in different directions, wondering if he could get away with taking a break despite only being two hours into his shift. He really wanted to go see what Charlie was up to, because he hadn’t seen him in a while and that almost certainly meant he was getting way drunker than he should during a shift. The thought sounded extremely appealing.

The backroom door opened, pulling Mac’s attention out of his self-pity and drawing it up. Dee came out into the main room, looking over her shoulder at a girl she was leading by the hand. She turned, cupped the girl’s face in her palms, and softly pulled her in to kiss. Mac raised his eyebrows. Dee patted the girl on the waist and cast her a flirty smile before she sent her back out into the crowd, and Dee, looking very self-satisfied, spun around and starting grabbing drinks off nearby tables.

Mac looked at her when she swept by him, eyes wide and accusatory; Dee matched his expression for a second and then turned and left haughtily, dumping the empties in her arms behind the bar. Mac gestured at her, and Dee cracked one open and set it down in front of him, raising an eyebrow.

“You owe us for this one,” said Dee, holding her palm out. “Pay up.”

“Aw, come on, Dee. I work here.”

Dee put her hand on her hip. “Mac, do you want the beer or not?”

He muttered under his breath about her being a bitch, fishing the money out of his back pocket. Dee grinned, satisfied, and snatched his couple of dollars to go put in the register. Dennis edged around her and started waiting on the table next to where Mac was still standing. When Dee came back over to Mac, swigging her own beer and coming to wipe the stickiness off the table with a damp rag, Mac was still watching her.

“So, what?” he asked finally, and Dee looked up innocently. “You’re a dyke now?”

Dennis glanced up and turned around to stare at them. Dee met Mac’s eye, firm and challenging.

“Okay, you really shouldn’t be saying that word,” said Dee. “As a man.”

“But I’m gay,” Mac protested, following her back over to the bar. “I get to say that stuff.”

“But you’re not a lesbian!” said Dee, spinning around to face him again. She was half-grinning at him in disbelief. “You can’t go around using slurs about lesbians when you’re not even a woman.”

“But you _are_ a lesbian, then?” Mac pressed, smirking at her. “That’s so lame, Dee.”

“Uh, what?” Dee spread her hands. “How is that lame?”

“Because you’re totally just jumping on this gay bandwagon!” said Mac, gesturing around the bar. Dennis shuffled a little closer to them, wiping absently at a spot a little ways down the bar that Dee had already covered. Mac gestured at him. “I’m gay, and Dennis has already been doing this whole sleeping with customers thing—”

“Hey,” said Dennis, furrowing his brow, turning to them, and not even remotely pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping. “I’m not—”

Dee rolled her eyes.

“I’m a woman, so it’s a new thing,” she said, “it’s separate. Besides, you can’t call dibs on being the only gay one in the group! And let’s be real, I’m doing it way better than you.”

“I’ve been gay for years and years!” said Mac. “I’m great at it by now—”

“Well, I’m at least better than Dennis,” said Dee. “You have to give me that, come on—”

“How?” asked Mac, laughing, as they both ignored Dennis objecting next to them. He had managed to edge his way right up beside Mac.

“Just because I occasionally work for my tip doesn’t mean that I—”

“You saw me!” Dee said over him, throwing an arm out to gesture toward the back office. “Dennis just flirts with guys and hardly ever does anything more with them, and you…you sleep around, but you don’t give a shit about any of those men! I’m hooking up with _intelligent_ women—”

“You don’t give a shit about any of those women either, Dee,” said Mac, laughing. “Be honest. You don’t care about how smart they are, or whatever — you just like that they’re tipping you instead of Dennis! That’s the only reason you started sleeping with them in the first place!”

“Fuck you,” Dee bit out, but there wasn’t any real heat behind it and she scoffed a little, shaking her head. Mac grinned around more beer. She flipped him off, smiling back.

Dennis was still frowning.

“So are you gay now or not, Dee?” Dennis demanded. They both looked up at him, surprised. He pressed, “Is this just because there’s no straight guys in here, or just because you’re so ugly that you couldn’t get a man to be into you and you had to resort to chicks?”

Dee barely spared him a glance before she was looking over at Mac again, shaking her head and silently inviting him to join in the vitriol. Mac stared between the two of them, saying nothing. He couldn’t tell yet who was going to come out on top.

“You’re such a dick, Dennis,” she said offhandedly. “What a stupid way to ask a question.”

“Hey!” said Dennis. “This is why I never take an interest in your life, you goddamn bitch.”

“Whatever,” said Dee.

“Whatever,” Dennis snapped back on a snarl.

He grabbed a couple empty shot glasses from nearby and stormed off behind the counter, down far away from them both. Dee caught Mac’s eye and grinned.

They were quiet for a moment, Mac sipping his beer and half-watching Dee as she went about her business nearby: clearing off tables, refilling napkin dispensers, wiping up spills. Dee glanced up and caught him looking every now and again, but she steadfastly ignored him for a good while, and that was just fine with him. Mac had nothing to say her, anyway. He remembered, after a while, that he was supposed to be at least pretending to man the front door, and he went back over there even though there wasn’t any line waiting to get inside.

Mostly, he was thinking about Dennis again. How he got really into hitting on men at the bar but reared back from taking things further most of the time, and noticeably enough that even Dee had something to say about it — even if just in that scathing way they all poked at each other to get a rise. The easy way Dennis called Mac gay but how he seemed to have a much more difficult time ascribing anything even in the ballpark of that to himself. How he had curled his body back on Mac’s anyway, as naturally as a vine snaking its way along the side of a house. How he’d smiled before they kissed.

Mac thought about other things in a vague, fuzzy way; he had the general sense that he had more important things to do than think about Dennis, but his mind slowly replayed how the slick curve of Dennis’s bottom lip looked up close and he couldn’t quite pinpoint what those other things might be.

Dee snapped her hand towel out to whip Mac on the arm. He startled, looking at her. The expression Dee leveled back at him was undefinable, not quite smiling and not quite gentle; it was something open and placating, as though he was a stupid dog she liked to poke with a stick to see how it would react but who she occasionally, when that suited her needs better, might coddle to put it at ease.

“What’s up, dickface?” Dee asked in a blind approximation of a gentle tone.

“Huh?”

Dee waved her hand in his face, her mouth twisted up and her eyebrows pulled together.

“You look, like, all distracted and shit,” she said, her bracelets jangling when she let her arm flop back down to her side. “Or like you’re thinking really hard about something. You’re not a smart guy, Mac, don’t hurt yourself.”

Mac picked at the label on the beer that he was still holding. Beside him, Dee tilted her head, watching him.

“My dad’s getting out of prison next week,” he blurted out. It was one of the many, many things spinning rapidly around in his head, so it felt truthful enough to be a viable answer.

“Um…Cool?” said Dee after a second.

“It _is_ cool,” Mac agreed. “He’s gonna come home and we’re gonna spend a ton of time together and shit.”

“That sounds great, Mac,” Dee said, still managing to seem both careful and entirely uninterested. “So, then, why are you looking like that?”

“Like what?”

She waved a hand vaguely in his face, and Mac gave a little laugh, shoving at her wrist. Dee grinned.

“All scrunchy and irritated and shit,” she said. “You’re, like, thinking with your whole face.”

“Oh.” Mac sighed. “I just have a lot of shit to do before he gets back and I’ve had, like, all month but I’m still super behind.”

“What do you have to do?” Dee asked, forehead creasing. Then she relaxed, and she laughed a little. “What the hell could some guy who’s been in prison for over ten years possibly need to have you get ready for him? Most guys would be happy just to have a home cooked meal and a chance to get some sleep without having to keep an eye out for some dude trying to shank him in the middle of the night. Or make him his prison bitch.”

“No one is making him his prison bitch!” Mac protested loudly. “If anything, my dad would be the one—”

“Can we drop this? I regret getting it started, I really didn’t mean to—”

“My dad is tough and strong and badass! He — Okay, we’ll drop it.” Mac shook his head. He had more important things to unload about, anyway. “Look, Dad’s gonna be home next week and I told him I was gonna find him a job before then.”

Dee scoffed. “Where do you think you’re gonna find someone willing to hire a guy convicted of armed robbery?”

“I don’t know,” Mac sighed. “Oh, yeah, and I told him I’d throw him this totally sweet coming home party for the night he got back. I haven’t even _started_ thinking about that yet. I’ve gotta find him some friends who aren’t, you know, locked up so they can come over for it, and I need to make a mix tape — He’s gonna want some snacks, I should find something that the prison store doesn’t have—”

“Woah, woah, woah! Back up,” said Dee, holding up her hands, and Mac stumbled to a halt, staring at her. “Back up. Did you say a party?”

Mac’s brow furrowed. “Uh, yeah. You can’t come home after eleven years without a coming home party, Dee. That’s crazy.”

“I’m with you there. Listen, so what time is this party?”

“It’s next Thursday,” said Mac, and then he immediately glared at her, suspicious. “Why?”

“Great!” said Dee excitedly. “I haven’t been to a party in so long, this is gonna be awesome.”

“Dee, you work at a bar,” Mac pointed out. “It’s like a party every night.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Irritating people, lots of liquor, shitty loud music that make your ears bleed,” said Mac, ticking the points off on his fingers. “And by the way, I didn’t invite you to the—”

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked, coming out of the bathroom. “Lots of liquor? Say no more, I’m in.”

“We’re going to a party Mac’s throwing next week,” Dee told him eagerly, over Mac’s emphatic protests. “His place, on Thursday.”

“That’s awesome,” said Charlie.

He and Dee high-fived.

“I know, right?”

“Hey Dennis!” Charlie called, spinning around. Dennis looked up from where he was busy with a customer over at the bar. “Party at Mac’s place next Thursday!”

“Great,” Dennis shouted back, giving him a thumbs up from across the room. “Awesome. I love that for us, I’m excited.”

“Guys, none of you were even invited,” Mac shouted desperately. “It’s a coming home thing for my dad because he’s getting out of prison—”

Charlie and Dee were already walking away.

“What are you thinking of wearing?” Charlie asked her. “I haven’t been to a house party in a really long time, I’m not sure what the, like, dress code is for that kind of thing.”

“Are you serious?” said Dee. “I was just saying that exact same thing about not going to enough parties!”

Their voices faded as they dissolved into the crowd’s general noise. Mac covered his face with his hand, shaking his head.

“Goddamn it,” he sighed. “That’s great.”

He looked up. Across the room, Dennis flashed him a bright grin. Mac rolled his eyes and went back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bad news laid ease and worms, BUT i'm going away this weekend for my bday and then immediately leaving for vacation so i probably won't get to update until the new year just by virtue of not being around my computer. hang in there though because next ch is juicy enough to be worth the wait, i promise.
> 
> thank u for all the lovely comments and for reading!! [hmu @ lesbianfreyja](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/181111664065) to talk about Them, this fic, and my infinite unconditional love for mac mcdonald xo


	6. dirty bathroom floors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it was just animalistic heat between them, then Mac could have brushed it off as a natural reaction to seeing a man undressed, objectively pretty, and flirty as hell nearby. Dennis was always doing that shit at the bar. But if he was still having these stupid, helpless thoughts when Dennis was just standing drinking vodka and Hawaiian punch in Mac’s living room, at his dad's coming home party, with his free hand shoved into his jeans pocket and wearing a stupid polo shirt with an ugly little guy playing the game on the lapel, then he really was fucked. No ignoring that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: nongraphic drunk puking & rec drug use. the scene during which the latter occurs was HEAVILY influenced by the sheer power of a fic i read once, credited in end notes in case you don't wanna be spoiled for this chap x

“Everything’s exactly where you left it,” Mac said excitedly, tripping a few steps ahead through the house. He turned around and grinned, and after looking at him for a minute, Luther raised an eyebrow. Mac gestured around at the living room. “So we put all the decorations in here, you know, and we can put some food out over there — Mom already made something—”

By the time Mac got finished showing Luther around, showing off all the things that were just like he remembered it, his mom had finished setting up the food and drinks table and the guests were beginning to show up. Luther trailed along with him the whole time, albeit always a few steps behind and without ever saying anything one way or the other. Mac’s mom kept walking between the rooms, smoking a cigarette and letting people in as they trickled by.

Luther introduced Mac to a few of his old associates from back in the day, and Mac made sure his parents always had a full glass in their hands. Their house wasn’t _packed_ , but there were enough people squeezed into the living room alone that Mac was having trouble keeping all of their names straight. The thought made him glow a little with pride; he had done well for this party.

Luther shooed Mac away from being directly underfoot for the third time. Mac stumbled back, his smile not faltering once.

“Come here,” said Luther, jostling Mac back away from one of his old friends with a hand on either of his shoulders. He pressed Mac close to the wall. “Listen, son.”

“Is this about the party?” Mac interrupted. “If you don’t like it, that’s fine. I told Mom that those streamers were ugly, she doesn’t listen to me—”

“No, the party is…fine,” said Luther, holding up a hand to still him. “I want to you ask about the job.”

“The job?” Mac echoed.

“The _job_. The job you were supposed to look into getting for me for when I got back.”

“Oh, that job!” Mac sighed. “Shoot, I’m sorry, Dad. I couldn’t find anywhere that would hire you! But I’m still looking, so don’t you worry, I’ll get you something. It will be good. I’ll find you something you’ll really like.”

Luther closed his eyes for a long moment, looking like he was forcibly calming himself down. Mac bit his lip.

“So there’s no job?” Luther said. Despite his voice coming out measured, he still sounded angry. Mac took a careful step backwards.

“Well, there’s no job _yet_ ,” Mac confirmed slowly, nodding. “But, I’m still working on it! I haven’t given up looking, so—”

The doorbell rang. Mac looked around, but his mom was nowhere in sight; waving his hands at his dad, he started to back up.

“Don’t move,” said Mac. “I’m gonna go get the door, and I’ll be right back.”

Luther stared at him, immobile and impossible to read, while Mac edged his way through the living room without turning away from his stony expression.

The doorbell rang again. And again.

“Jesus Christ, I’m fucking coming!” said Mac, whirling around to yank open the door. “Oh, hey guys.”

Dennis and Dee pushed past him before he was finished talking, laughing about something together. Dennis clapped Mac on the back when he spun around to look at them, his expression contorting. Charlie slipped in after them, and although Mac didn’t turn around, he could feel the warm weight of his presence nearby.

“It looks awesome in here, dude.” Dennis grinned at him; his palm had slid down and was spread out between Mac’s shoulder blades, now, and he tapped there lightly before pulling away. “Who are all of these people?”

Mac pointed out some of them that he knew by name as he looked around.

“That’s — Well, my dad you know,” he said, gesturing over to where Luther was looming over someone by the fireplace. “Those are some of his friends from before he went to jail. And, uh, that’s some chick my mom knows, I think — I don’t know—”

“Cool, cool,” said Dee absently, shoving her hands deep in her jacket pockets. “Hey, you got booze?”

“Of course I’ve got booze, Dee,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What is this, junior high?”

“Junior high?” Charlie laughed, shutting the door behind them all. “Maybe third grade, buddy. Mac? Booze?”

“Booze,” Mac agreed.

He led them all deeper into the living room, his hand spread across the small of Dennis’s back; Dennis turned to shoot him a little smile. Mac stacked full cups into everyone’s hand, making sure to go heavy on the liquor — they could handle it. Dee grinned at him briefly in thanks, and then she almost immediately left to go raid his fridge. Charlie pointed vaguely after her.

“You got chicken in the fridge?”

Mac furrowed his brow at him. “Uh, yeah, I think there’s chicken. There should be some cold cuts in the middle drawer.”

Charlie flipped him two thumbs up.

“Sounds cool,” he said, backing away. “Cool, cool.”

Charlie disappeared after Dee into the kitchen. Shaking his head, Mac turned back to Dennis.

“Uh — They’re high,” Dennis explained, pointing after them.

“Right. Sure,” said Mac. “So anyway, can I get you something to eat? Are you hungry too?”

“No, I’m good,” said Dennis. He glanced over Mac’s shoulder. “Show me around?”

They shared a smile for a long, quiet moment. Despite the house raging around them, Mac was pretty sure that there was absolutely nothing else going on except for how Dennis was looking at him.

“Yeah, dude. Of course.”

Dennis had only gotten to peek at the living room and what he could see of the kitchen last time he was here; still, he made similar comments as he had before about how everything still looked the same. Mac led him around the basement and up to his and his parents’ rooms on the second floor, but he didn’t want to linger away from his mom and dad for too long. They trailed back down to where the action was together, Dennis’s arm around his shoulders and his drink nearly all the way gone, and Dennis was leaning into his side and laughing about something when Mac pulled them to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, one hand sharp and insistent on the side of Dennis’s waist.

“Hold up!” Mac said excitedly. “I can’t believe I haven’t introduced you to my dad yet!”

He grabbed Dennis’s arm and tugged him across the room. Already, Dennis was protesting.

“I’ve met your dad a bunch of times before,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The three of us got stuck in that cabin once when we were fourteen. You remember that? I really don’t need to—”

“Hey, Dad!” Mac called, and he pulled up short, yanking Dennis to a stop next to him.

Luther turned to look at them, breaking off from the conversation he’d been having with his brows raised and his eyes wide. Mac’s smile barely weakened, but he did keep his hands strictly to his sides. Dennis waved vaguely from beside him.

“Hey, Mr. Mac,” Dennis said after a stilted moment of silence wherein the three of them just looked at each other. “You look…Uh, good. Prison was good to you.”

Another beat of silence.

“Dad!” Mac broke in excitedly. “You remember Dennis, right? We were like, best buddies in high school. He was here all the time. Or, I guess I was there? Well anyway—”

“Yeah, I remember him. Hello, Dennis,” Luther said in his usual slow, off-putting drawl.

Dennis swallowed compulsively. “Hey,” he said back, sounding strained.

Mac pressed his palm into the small of Dennis’s back again, reassuring and steady. Dennis leaned into him so slightly that it was almost imperceptible. Mac rubbed his thumb into Dennis’s back through his t-shirt.

“Well—” said Mac after another awkward silence. “I, uh, just wanted to come say hi again, Dad, and to introduce you to my friends. Or I guess…re-introduce you to them? Um, Charlie and Dee are in the kitchen. You remember Charlie—”

“Uh huh.”

“…Great,” said Mac. He clapped his hands together. “Well, Dad, I’ll let you get back to…whatever you were doing. You seemed real into it.”

Luther was already turning away. Mac’s hands clenched, spasmodically; he swayed on his feet for a second, and then Dennis was there to guide him away by the shoulders.

“Can you mix me another drink?” Dennis said, pushing his empty cup into Mac’s hands, and they were across the room then but Mac didn’t entirely remember how they had gotten there. Dennis dipped his head, nodding at him. “Mac? I’m empty and totally sober over here, do you mind?”

“What? Oh, right. Sure,” said Mac.

He shook his head. Dennis squeezed at one of his shoulders, murmuring, “There’s a good host,” and Mac started refilling his solo cup, heavy on the booze and light on the juice just like Dennis always preferred it. Dennis kneaded gently at the back of his neck while he worked, and he flipped him a bright grin when Mac passed it over. Dennis sipped at it, a pleased expression breaking over his face after a moment, and Mac smiled automatically back at him.

He had a truly incredible ability to spread himself like butter in Mac’s head, until Mac wasn’t doing anything but looking at him, wasn’t doing anything but talking to him, wasn’t thinking about anything else. He seeped into the cracks and molded himself to fit. Nobody else that Mac had ever met quite managed to pull off the same effect, even though some had tried. Even Charlie tended to resort to inhalants to achieve something similar, when he wanted.

Dennis gestured to him.

“Have a drink too. Take a load off,” Dennis advised. “You’ve been so busy running things around here…You probably need one.”

Mac wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but Dennis was already drifting back closer to the liquor and Mac trailed after him without thinking. When Dennis pushed a cup into his hand, Mac automatically filled it with rum and coke. He intended to nurse it for awhile, but it was hard not to suck it down when Dennis smiled encouragingly at him like that. Dennis patted at his shoulder.

“Great, man. Relax,” he said.

He glanced around the room over his shoulder; Mac took the opportunity to study him privately. It was the first chance he’d gotten to have a good look at him since he arrived; with Charlie and Dee in tow, it was impossible to do anything without getting called out for something (whether real or imaginary hardly mattered, most of the time — it was always the accusation that counted) and now was the first time Mac got to do it in peace. Dennis looked good, relaxed in jeans and a t-shirt, and Mac felt his heart dip and skip a beat. He had the strongest urge to flick teasingly at one of Dennis’s loose curls, or start messing with the collar of his shirt just to irritate him.

There, really. Right there: That was the last chance of pretending that everything that had happened with them since he’d gotten back was just a byproduct of liquor combined with all the skin Dennis showed at the bar. That last chance was slipping away down the drain. If it was just animalistic heat between them, then Mac could have brushed it off as a natural reaction to seeing a man undressed, objectively pretty, and flirty as hell nearby. But if he was still having these stupid, helpless thoughts when Dennis was just standing drinking vodka and Hawaiian punch in Mac’s living room, his free hand shoved into his jeans pocket and wearing a stupid polo shirt with an ugly little guy playing the game on the lapel, then he really was fucked. No ignoring that.

Dennis looked back at him and smiled.

“Wanna go find the guys?” he asked, and Mac swallowed quickly and nodded.

Dee and Charlie were busy wolfing down everything they could find in the kitchen. With a quiet word that he would be right back, Mac left Dennis there with them. He wanted to loop back around to his dad and make sure he didn’t need anything else.

Mac ended up following Luther around for over an hour, mostly tripping under his feet and getting him drink refills whenever he asked. His mom had planted herself on the couch awhile ago, and she flagged him down whenever she wanted more beer too. Mac was midway through tugging on the end of his dad’s sleeve, asking him to make introductions with the guy he was talking to, when he saw Charlie dart past in the corner of his eye. He was beelining right for the kitchen, darting between elbows and looking slightly green. Mac paled, and he abandoned his attempts to network to take off after him.

“What are you doing, bro?” Mac said, lunging forward and snagging Charlie by the back of his shirt.

Charlie tipped a little under his grip, and Mac grabbed at him with both hands to keep him from face-planting on the kitchen tile. Giggling, Charlie leaned back into Mac’s touch.

“Shit, dude.” Mac sighed. He swiped his hand over his face. “You’re totally wasted!”

“I’m fine,” Charlie hiccupped. “Hey, you got more cheese?”

“Do I have more — What? No! I don’t have any cheese, Charlie. Please stop eating cheese.”

“If I want cheese, I’m gonna have some cheese,” said Charlie firmly, piercing Mac with one of his no-nonsense looks that suggested he would happily drive to the supermarket right now if that was the only way to get some gouda.

He made a move for the fridge again, all his heavy drunk weight tipping them in that direction. Mac tugged him back with a groan — and, miraculously, two more hands appeared on Charlie’s other arm and they successfully pushed Charlie against the wall.

“How much have you had to drink?” Dennis asked, peering into Charlie’s face.

Charlie shrugged.

“He’s way too fucked up,” Mac groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose anxiously. “Dude, my dad’s gonna be so pissed off. My friends can’t crash his party! They’re gonna break things.”

“We don’t break things,” Dennis protested.

“You and Charlie smashed up my coffee table in tenth grade because you were wrestling!” Mac shouted. “You broke my mom’s favorite lamp playing baseball when we were fifteen.”

Dennis scowled at him. He shoved Charlie back against the wall as he made another desperate attempt at escape, arms windmilling fruitlessly.

“Mac, _you_ broke that lamp because you were practicing roundhouse kicks drunk!” Dennis said, pressing his forearm into Charlie’s chest.

“I want cheese,” Charlie announced, derailing Mac’s protest that that was a lie.

“Great, let’s get you some cheese,” said Dennis. “If it will shut you up for a second.”

He shot Mac a placating look over Charlie’s head and wound his arm around his shoulders, leading him back over to the food table. There were some wedges of cheese put out to spread on crackers, but Dennis speared a few with toothpicks and gave them to him straight, swatting his hands away when he tried to just grab at them with dirty fingers. Mac pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

Something loud clattered upstairs.

“Dee,” Mac hissed. He took off again through the press of bodies.

Dee had managed to knock over the CD shelf in Mac’s room and sent everything on it scattering all over the floor. She was haphazardly gathering them up in clumsy arms when Mac came in, and she stopped to look at him. Crouched on the floor, cheeks bright red from liquor, and her eyes wide, she did not exactly make an innocent picture.

“This just collapsed,” she blurted out.

“Jesus Christ,” Mac muttered. “What were you doing in here in the goddamn first place?”

“I was not looking for a place to throw up, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“You bitch. You goddamn bitch!” Mac shook his head. “Come here.”

He grabbed her roughly by the arm and tugged her up to her feet. He made sure to shut his bedroom door behind them, still reaming her out about her lack of grace, but privately he was glad she had at least made a mess of his room instead of his parents’.

“You’ve been to my house tons of times before,” Mac sighed. “You know where my bedroom is!”

Dee cast him a very haughty look considering he was supporting eighty-five percent of her weight and she was still managing to stumble into the wall.

“I’m to remember every house that I’ve blacked out in?” Dee asked imperiously.

Mac briefly closed his eyes until Dee mumbled, “Whoops!” and he had to pay enough attention to keep them both from tumbling down the stairs. He got them halfway down, and safely, when Dennis appeared at the bottom step.

“Charlie found an old woman who seems to like him, so he’s occupied for a while,” Dennis said, sighing. His gaze flicked with some interest over his sister. She burped and waved at him. “What did she do?”

“Made a mess,” Mac sighed. “Can you help me get her outside? I think she’s gonna puke and I don’t want her doing that on the floor.”

“What about the bathroom?” Dennis asked, but he was already stepping up to grab her other arm and sling it over his shoulders.

“Nobody’s gotta see her like this if I can help it.”

“Right.”

“I can hear you, dickholes,” Dee said. “You’re both such assholes all the time.”

Mac and Dennis got her hauled through the living room with a few placating smiles at his parents’ guests, and nobody stopped to ask too many questions. His eyes snagged on a big stain rubbed into the floor, and he glared at Dennis over Dee’s head.

“What is that?” he demanded.

“Oh…My bad,” he said, his cheeks reddening a little. “Yeah, I spilled a little punch when I was giving Charlie the cheese.”

“Is that why Charlie’s wearing my shirt?”

“Yeah.” Dennis shrugged. “I got it out of the laundry.”

“It looks like somebody got stabbed!”

“It could be worse,” said Dennis, spreading his free hand for a split second before he had to grab Dee with it to keep her from falling over. “Have you seen the people here? Somebody might still get stabbed, bro.”

“Shut the fuck up and help me get your shitfaced sister outside,” Mac snapped.

The both of them grumbling, Dennis held open the back door so Mac could shove Dee through it.

“Here,” said Mac, releasing her and nudging her thigh with his shoe. “You can puke out here if you need.”

Dennis backed up, his hands in the air. Dee collapsed to her knees almost immediately. When she bent over to start puking, Mac grabbed for a big chunk of her hair to pull away from her face, and Dennis inhaled, a look passing over his face like he was steeling himself.

“So listen,” said Mac, while Dee began retching, and Dennis swept the hair Mac hadn’t gathered up away from her sweaty face, “I’ve been asking around for my dad for a while now.”

“Yeah?” Dennis asked. He sounded both cautious and accusatory, glancing at Mac for a spare second before refocusing on helping Dee not throw up on her jeans.

“You know what the number one job felons get after getting out of prison?”

“Line cooks,” said Dennis immediately.

“No! Well, yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “But after that.”

“Truckers.”

“No! Stop guessing.”

“You asked me to guess,” said Dennis, shrugging a little. “Oh, shit.”

Dee swayed forward again. They both jumped back as much as they could while still staying close enough to hold back her hair.

“It’s security gigs, bro!”

“What?” said Dennis, glancing up at him. “Oh — Uh, that doesn’t sound true, bro. How sure are you about that?”

“I’m positive!” said Mac. “’Cause dudes in prison are super hard, right? Yes, they get all jacked in the big house ‘cause they have nothing else to do except get their pump on, and then they get out and they’re all intimidating and shit since they’ve done time!”

“Okay,” Dennis said slowly. “I’m still not totally sure I believe that, but — Cool, I guess. So, you got your dad a job as a bouncer or something?”

“No,” said Mac.

They paused to get a better grip on Dee’s hair as she gagged again; Mac twisted it around his fist like a ponytail holder.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbled, breathing heavy. She swiped at their hands on her, and they stepped back, Dennis muttering at her. “I’m good now. I’m done.”

Dee sat back on her heels and began hastily doing up her hair with the tie around her wrist. As soon as he could ignore her, he did, and Mac turned back to Dennis with bubbling excitement.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” said Mac. “My dad could work at Paddy’s with us!”

He spread his hands, eyebrows jumping up his forehead. Dennis stared at him for a long couple of seconds, and Mac looked back with a big grin.

“Oh, shit. You’re being serious?” said Dennis, startling. “You want to bring an ex-con into our bar? Into our half-successful gay bar, you want to bring your prison-hardened father?”

“Felons are cool!”

“Felons are totally cool,” Dennis agreed. “Doesn’t your dad eat people or some shit? I thought I heard that on the news.”

“No, he doesn’t eat people,” said Mac, rolling his eyes, “but you have to admit it, man, that would be awesome.”

“But we can’t have him eating people in the bar! We do pretty good business, Mac. That would ruin all of our momentum that we’ve got going.”

“He wouldn’t eat the _customers_ ,” said Mac, rolling his eyes. “He doesn’t eat people!”

“That’s not the part I’m getting hung up on,” said Dennis. “My concern is about whether or not our customers are going to be cool with an ex-convict hanging around the bar. What’s the one thing that all gay people are scared of? Like, more scared of than they are of cops?”

“Their parents,” Mac said immediately, pointing at him.

“No,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. “I mean — yeah. But no, dude!”

“Every stranger on the street!”

“Stop guessing,” Dennis said crossly. “The only thing gays are more scared of than the people arresting them is what happens _after_ they’re arrested!”

“Really?”

“Think about it, bro,” said Dennis. “In the extremely likely event that one of us goes to jail, would _you_ open with how into dudes you are?”

“No, I guess I wouldn’t,” said Mac, eyebrows pulling together. “But think about this: Who’s gonna know that my dad was in prison? Right? If we just don’t mention it—”

“Dude, I would know your dad was in prison from ten miles away,” said Dennis, laughing a little. “In fact, if I saw your dad on the street, I would immediately think that he had recently escaped from prison. I wouldn’t imagine that anyone in their right mind would let a guy like him out. In fact, I’d assume that people were actively looking for him, because he was wanted for mass murder or some shit like that.”

“Hey,” Mac protested weakly.

“Uh, guys?” said Dee. She waved up at them, and tugged on the leg of Dennis’s jeans. “I think I’m gonna boot again.”

“Then boot. Who gives a shit, Dee?” said Mac, waving at her in irritation. “Den, look. Let’s just try him out! We can give him security detail. We have lots of fights break out all over the bar, all the time! And outside in the alley, and on the sidewalk — He can break them up or whatever, and you can pay him next to nothing.”

“Next to nothing?” Dennis asked in a more level voice.

“Next to nothing!”

“But then what will you do?”

“I’ll keep checking IDs and doing all that other shit you have me do,” said Mac. “You know, like, lugging up kegs from the basement and helping Charlie unload the deliveries and all that bullshit. He’s this close to throwing his back out, bro.”

“No — Well, I think Charlie might be stronger than you, but that’s besides the point.”

“What?” said Mac, rearing back. “That’s crazy! Dude, I go to the gym all the time—”

“Yeah, but you only work out your glamor muscles, and you know it! You’re totally arm-heavy. I can tell that just by looking at you.”

“I work out my core!”

Dee leaned out of the bushes, trailing her forearm across her chin. She looked hazily up at the both of them.

“You do _not_ work out your core,” Dee said fuzzily. “You’re mostly fat and ribs.”

She doubled back over and threw up again.

“Let’s move past it,” said Mac, while at their feet Dee leaned back on her hands and slumped over to the ground. “What do you think, Den? We can hire my dad on a probationary basis, and see how he does. If we don’t like him, he’s out! Just like that.”

Dennis bit his lip, squinting at him. For a long time he said nothing, and then finally:

“Okay…But this is a democracy, Mac. Majority rules. None of that un-American unanimous shit, if me and Charlie don’t like it then he’s gone.”

“What about me?” Dee hiccupped from the dirt.

“You don’t own any shares in the bar, so your vote does not mean shit,” said Dennis. “Jesus Christ, you’re a mess. Get a hold of yourself, Dee.”

“Yeah. We should get her to bed,” said Mac.

Dennis nodded. They looked at each other grimly, and both bent to grab one of her wrists again. They managed to heave her up to sitting with minimal struggle, but had to coax her into finding her feet herself. Dennis kept talking shit to her as he wound an arm around her waist, and Mac shouldered his way underneath one of her arms again. Together, they lurched with her toward the back door.

“How have you not learned how to handle your liquor by now?” Dennis demanded as they stumbled their way through the kitchen again.

The other guests had gotten a little rowdier in their absence, and it was a lot less obvious how fucked up Dee was by now. She mumbled something into Dennis’s shoulder, and Dennis cast Mac an irate look over her head. Mac just sighed and worked on getting her up the stairs without anyone breaking a bone.

Mac’s bedroom door was open again at the other end of the hallway. He really hoped that nobody was having sex in there — but when they got Dee through the door, the room was dark and quiet. Dee leaned further into Mac when Dennis let her go, stepping on the CDs still scattered all over the carpet when he went to go search out the light switch. Mac readjusted his grip on her, muttering curses into her ear, mostly about what a bitch she was being.

Dennis flicked on the light.

The room was an even bigger mess than Mac had anticipated, but he barely registered that. More obvious and important was Charlie, already spread-eagled on Mac’s bed and snoring away.

“Well, that’s where he went,” Dennis sighed, making his way back across the sea of CDs to grab Dee’s arm again.

Together they managed to shove Charlie over onto one side of the mattress and throw Dee down next to him. Mac grabbed a trash can to thrust under Charlie’s face, but it would most likely not matter in the long run. Charlie was probably going to end up pissing in Mac’s bed anyway, because he always did that when he got too hammered. A little vomit on his carpet would fit nicely into tomorrow morning: a hangover to accompany scrubbing his friends’ sweat, piss, and puke off of every surface in his room.

Dennis flicked off the light again and they slunk out.

“I need a drink,” said Mac with a sigh. “Wanna stay here for a few minutes and make sure they don’t die in their sleep? I’ll grab you some punch.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dennis said on a sigh.

Mac squeezed his arm a little, and Dennis slumped back against the open door with his arms crossed while Mac slipped back through the hallway and downstairs.

He got one drink mixed and paused halfway through taking another plastic cup off the pile, attention snagging on his dad exiting the kitchen. Quickly chugging his drink so he could set it down, Mac hurried over to him before he could get distracted with anything else.

“Dad, guess what!”

Luther startled, at least as much as he ever did; he jerked to a halt and looked down at Mac suddenly underfoot, his trademark casually disinterested look on his face.

“So, I have some news! Great news, it’s great news,” Mac said quickly. “I—”

Luther held up his hand, though, and Mac’s head reared back a little as he trailed off. Luther’s bright, horrible gaze was on him in full force, and usually Mac would have killed for that kind of fierce attention, but at the moment he had the distinct feeling that his stomach should drop — and it did.

“Which one of your dipshit friends,” Luther said slowly, “knocked over all the punch on the table?”

Mac hesitated.

“Uh — Nobody,” he said. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“I know nobody that _I_ know would be that _fucking_ clumsy around the food and drinks.”

He took a deep breath, eyes falling closed; Mac hesitated, watching him, wondering if that was a sign that the storm was over or if he was directly in the eye of it, and any minute he was about to get whiplash when it suddenly gusted over him at a hundred miles an hour.

“So,” said Luther, his voice trembling, “if it wasn’t one of _my_ friends, and it wasn’t one of _your_ friends…and your mother hasn’t moved from that recliner since God invented the idea of chairs…then I assume it was you.”

“No! No, it wasn’t!” Mac said quickly. “Hey, Dad…What’s so special about the punch? Well, I just mean….You seem really worked up about the punch, and I d—”

Luther’s volume climbed steadily when he said, “There was _three hundred dollars worth of pills_ under the _goddamn_ table!”

Mac paled.

“Oh,” he said, voice shrinking significantly. He scratched at the back of his head. “Can you, you know…put it in rice or something?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Luther really had a magnificent talent for sounding like he wanted to rip Mac’s head off without actually screaming at him. Mac imagined that it was great for making threats without anyone overhearing you and connecting you back to the victim if they later turned up dead.

Mac wasn’t stupid; he had run plenty of jobs for his dad back in the day, and he got the picture. Nobody just handed drugs out to customers, because everyone was a suspect and you had to account for the possibility of a snitch watching. You always had to make sure you had enough plausible deniability in case you got busted.

So instead of asking why he’d stashed them there, Mac said, “Don’t you have any more?”

“Of course I do!” Luther’s voice was still shaking in that scary way. “I’ve been stowing shit in your mother’s soap dispenser since we moved in together! Do you really think that woman understands the first thing about personal hygeine?”

“Then why don’t you just give them that stuff?”

“That’s not the point, you miserable, shitty excuse for an inbred idiot! Goddamn it.” Luther’s hands clenched into fists by his side. Through his teeth, he said in an almost frighteningly measured way, “There’s no more _pills_ to _give_ this guy. And even if there was, I would be out three…hundred…dollars. Do you get the picture here, _son_?”

“Oh.”

Luther stood there for another few seconds, breathing a little heavier than usual and looking like he was very, very close to throttling him. Mac decided his best option was to get the hell out of there before his dad decided the benefits outweighed the risks.

“Uh — I’m gonna get Mom a refill,” Mac said, and he skirted around where Luther was still rooted to the spot looking murderous to go get her a cup of straight vodka.

Somebody had pulled the tablecloth off the food and drinks table, and there were indeed large splotches of the wood that had clearly gotten soaked through the covering, because they were much darker than the rest of the table and still damp. Mac only touched one for a few seconds to check before whipping his hand back, hissing sympathetically between his teeth. He had no real desire to linger at the scene of the crime; he grabbed a cup, dumped a good amount of the nearest liquor into it, and hastened away to go shove it at where his mom was sitting sprawled on the recliner.

One of Luther’s friends was hovering nearby, talking to her excitedly about some felony or another that he had managed to pull off successfully. He kept emphasizing how much money he had gotten out of the ordeal, but Mrs. Mac was just sipping at her beer and staring off ahead into the middle-distance, apparently completely unimpressed. Mac pouted in sympathy at the guy as he thrust the vodka forward.

“Here you go, Mom, straight liquor, just the way you like it.”

She flicked a glance up at him. As she grabbed for the cup, she grunted something that Mac recognized as a thank-you.

Mac glared at the guy sitting on the couch next to her, who was still leaning in close to try and get her in conversation. He jerked his head to the side over and over, trying to subtly communicate that the guy should leave. When he just glared back at him, Mac decided that the possibility that these particular guests might be secretly holding knives outweighed his own comfort by a landslide. He perched on the armrest of his mom’s chair instead.

“So,” said Mac, steepling his fingers together and stretching his arms out. His limbs felt all blood-heavy and loose from all the liquor running through them, and he giggled a little when he heard his elbows crack. He turned a lazy grin on her. “How are you enjoying the party, Mom?”

She grunted at him. Mac was pretty sure that meant, _I’m having the time of my life_. _I’m so glad your father’s home_.

“Aw, me too!” he said. “Do you need anything else before I go check on my friends?”

She grunted again. _No, thank you_.

“Okay. Okay! Well, just let me know.” He hopped off the chair and studied her, eyes raking down her briefly. He beamed. “You look great, Mom. Dad must be, like, _so_ happy he’s out of prison.”

She grunted something that he couldn’t quite parse out, and with another bright smile he turned away from her. Across the room, he caught a glimpse of his dad talking very seriously to someone; neither of them looked happy. Mac paled a little when Luther looked over at him, something unreadable and dark passing over his face.

The party was good. The party was _not_ a bust, Mac told himself insistently as he made himself a new drink and headed for the stairs. The party was great, and it would show his dad that being home with Mac and his mom was one hundred percent better than being in prison, and he would get over the pills thing and they would all be happy together soon.

With a tired little sigh, Mac headed back upstairs to make sure Dee and Charlie hadn’t puked and died or whatever in their sleep.

When he mounted the stairs, Dennis was still leaning at the end of the hall near his room, looking bored. He smiled briefly when he saw Mac, but it faded a little at whatever he registered when he flicked his gaze over Mac’s face. He arched an eyebrow instead.

“Hey,” he said cautiously. “You forgot my drink.”

“Oh…Sorry,” Mac said absently. He saw the covetous way Dennis was looking at his own punch, and quickly took a sip before Dennis could grab at it and try to claim it for himself. “Got distracted.”

“Good stuff?”

Mac thought about the punch Dennis and Charlie had upended in a quest for cheese, and the pissed off way his dad was talking to him now. He sighed.

“Nothing major,” he said, drinking down a lot more of his punch. “Nothing I can’t shuffle us past, anyway.”

“Okay…Whatever,” Dennis said.

“Yeah,” said Mac. He thrust his cup at Dennis. “Hold this for a sec?”

Dennis scrambled to get a good grip on it, glancing up at him, but Mac was already slinking away. “Why? What’s up?”

“Just thought of a way to make this night a lot better,” Mac said, jerking his eyebrows enigmatically and biting down on his lower lip. Dennis rolled his eyes and Mac disappeared back down the hall.

He had to root around a little in his parents’ room, digging around under their sink and in the tub, but eventually he found what he wanted in the closet where they kept all their spare bathroom supplies. God, he was good, he thought self-satisfactorily as he shut some of the drawers and cabinets he’d opened. He poked his head around the corner out of his parents’ room, peering out into the hallway.

“Hey,” Mac called, not too loudly. Dennis looked up at him. “Guess what I got for us.”

Dennis arched his eyebrow. “What’s up, man?”

Mac grinned. He waved a little Ziploc baggie in the air, and Dennis’s eyes caught on it for a long, suspended moment. He met Mac’s eye with his mouth open.

“Yo! You got coke?” Dennis said.

His voice pitched up when he was excited, and he broke out into this really open expression that made Mac grin goofily back at him.

“I got coke!” Mac confirmed with a little laugh. He shoved the baggie into his pocket and waved Dennis over, sharp and quick. “Come on, before someone sees and wants to share.”

“I’m not sharing that, no way.”

Mac emerged from his parents’ room, shutting the door snugly behind him, and Dennis followed him back down the hall. After glancing in either direction, Mac ushered him into the bathroom ahead of him and shut it swiftly behind them. He leaned back on the door, still smiling triumphantly, and Dennis just looked at him, biting his lip around a smile back.

“Well, don’t just stand there all day looking like a dick,” Dennis said at last. He rubbed his palms together. “Let’s do a line.”

He reached out and pulled on the front of Mac’s shirt, dragging him the few steps in until they were standing next to each other properly. Mac couldn’t stop smiling at him, even as he shuffled Dennis out of the way so he could have easier access to the sink. He dumped some of the coke out on the counter and shoved the rest of the bag back into his jeans.

“You got an ID or something on you?” Mac asked, holding out a hand.

Dennis fished around in his pocket, tongue sticking out a little in concentration, until he fumbled up his wallet. He pulled his driver’s license out and passed it over, swaying a little closer to Mac when he did. Mac nudged him away with knuckles on his hip until Dennis obligingly stepped back, giving Mac room to bend over the counter and make a line. He shouldn’t have done this on a white countertop, when his vision was already a little blurry from drinking; it was difficult to focus and make sure that he wasn’t wasting any powder.

Mac divided the coke up into two thick lines, one for each of them. He swiped the ID clean on the side of his jeans and gave it back to him. Dennis pocketed it and chugged the rest of the cup of liquor he was still holding, head tilting back, neck arching as he opened up his throat to get it down quickly. Mac paused, hands hovering over the powder, watching him. He had never been very good at chugging, himself, and there was something enchanting and maybe a little addicting about watching Dennis do it so smoothly. He didn’t flinch once at the taste.

Dennis finished the cup, crushed it in one fist with a burp, and tossed it into the trash can.

“What are you waiting for?” he said, gesturing back at the coke.

Dennis didn’t look away from him when Mac bent down again, apparently very intent on watching Mac as he leaned over the counter and railed his line. He looked so closely, too, like he needed to watch to make sure he did it right or something.

Mac pulled back, sniffing hard and trying not to cough when the drugs trailed down his sinuses. He was blinking rapidly, eyes tearing up; Dennis rubbed at one of his shoulders, pulling a face.

“Oh, holy shit,” said Mac, swiping at his nose. “It’s been awhile. Okay, I’m fine. You go.”

He backed off and Dennis shuffled into place instead. Mac was still standing close, though, the whole front of his body nearly pressed to the side of Dennis’s, but Dennis didn’t seem to care. He didn’t pay Mac any mind at all as he bent gracefully in two and quickly did his own line. After he pulled back, sniffing hard, he licked at a finger and swiped it along the counter so he could rub whatever he must have found there into his gums.

“Good coke,” Dennis breathed, popping his finger out of his mouth.

His lips were shiny, the end of his nose was bright red. Mac’s attention was trailing along the lower half of his face and he nodded vaguely, not really listening.

“Uh huh.”

Dennis grinned, suddenly. He licked at his thumb and said, “You want the rest?”

Mac jerked guiltily, looking away from Dennis’s mouth and back at the counter.

“I can get it,” he said, overly loud.

Dennis backed off with his hands in the air while Mac pressed a thin dusting of coke into the whorls of his fingerprint and spread it in his mouth. Dennis watched him sucking on it after he got done rubbing it into his gums, getting off the last of whatever powder might still be there.

“We should do one more line,” Dennis said, and almost before he was finished speaking Mac piped up, “ _Yes_.”

Mac spread more coke out on the counter, and Dennis handed back his ID. Figuring they would probably want more after this, he just balanced the license down on the edge of the sink when he was done cutting lines with it, in easy reach to use later. He dropped the Ziploc bag down next to it, too.

These lines were thicker than the last ones, and it burned harder when Mac snuffed it down. He coughed violently, feeling like his whole throat was on fire the way that sometimes happened if he accidentally got water in his nose or something. He didn’t realize that Dennis was rubbing deep circles into the middle of his back until it had already been going on for a while. Dennis was ducked close, watching his red face struggle.

“Water?” Mac gasped.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dennis said absently, glancing around. “Where?”

Mac pointed out the little Dixie Cups that they kept in the medicine cabinet. Dennis ushered him to sit on the lid of the toilet with two warm hands on his shoulders, and he filled one of the cups with water from the tap. Mac chugged it gratefully. This time, he was more aware when Dennis put his hands back on him; he brushed them through Mac’s hair this time, a soft, soothing rhythm that Mac couldn’t help but lean into. He was already coming up, his skin beginning to feel electric. When Dennis’s fingers caught and tugged a little on his hair, all Mac really wanted to do was get closer.

He stood up instead, directing Dennis over to the sink with little pushes on his waist. A flush was rising up under Dennis’s skin, draping itself prettily across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. The coke must have been kicking in for him, too.

“You go,” Mac said softly, still right beside his ear.

They were so close together that Dennis kind of pressed against him when he bent to do his line. When he done gumming the last of it, he turned around, lounging against the sink and facing him. Mac leaned around him to swipe at the counter, clearing it of whatever drug residue they hadn’t imbibed. Vaguely, through the floor or the crack under the door or maybe both, he could hear the low thumping of the bass coming from downstairs, the music filtering up to where they were sequestered away. When Mac looked up at him, Dennis was swaying gently side to side in place. He was standing so close that their thighs brushed every now and again, vibrant points of contact. Mac felt like he could catalogue every single nerve ending in his body but not in an uncomfortable way — not in the same, hyper-aware way that happened sometimes when he smoked weed. This was both clearer and less disturbing. He felt like his brain was lighting up, shooting happy sparks down through his blood.

“How are you enjoying the party?” Mac said, and he distantly heard the words coming out in a soft whoosh, carried along on a breath. Dennis grinned at him, for some reason.

“It’s great,” said Dennis. He shrugged. “Wanna dance?”

Mac giggled a little. Yeah, he was definitely fucked up.

“I don’t think any of my dad’s felon buddies are dancing down there, dude.”

“We’re not dancing down there, either,” Dennis pointed out.

He reached across the scant inches between them and twisted his hands into the bottom of Mac’s shirt, tugging on him a little, his body still swaying. Mac laughed and wrapped his hands around his wrists in a bad effort to still him.

“You’re stretching it out, man.”

Dennis grinned at his protests. He wasn’t really dancing at all, just moving very slightly like he was being buffeted around by moderate winds. Somehow it was still smooth, suave.

“What’s the matter?” Dennis asked. It wasn’t really a taunt but it wasn’t really innocent, either. “You don’t wanna dance with me?”

Mac’s gaze skittered along his flushed cheeks, the smile tugging on his mouth, the arch of his brows across his forehead as he teased him. His fingers slipped down from Dennis’s wrists a little, touching his hands instead. Mac’s blood was singing, sparking from the drugs. A few beats too late, he shook his head.

“Not even a little, man,” said Mac.

Dennis let go of his t-shirt and Mac caught his hands before they fell away. For a brief second, he curled his fingers through Dennis’s — barely there, a very loose hold on him. He twisted them down to point at the floor, watching Dennis’s mouth curl up at the motion. Made a mental note: Dennis liked it when he played absently with him, any part of him. Then he slid his hands free and cupped Dennis’s face with them instead.

He could feel it, Dennis breathing harder, when he was this close to him. His own heart was racing in his chest. He was so, _so_ fucking high. Mac’s thumbs stroked over his cheekbones, tracing along the edges of the color heating up under his skin.

Dennis breathed out, all urgent. “Come on, Mac.”

More points of electricity, making his lips tingle when he pulled Dennis in the last little bit and kissed him hard. Dennis’s hands were on him even before his mouth was, running over his ass and squeezing firmly. Mac twisted his fingers into Dennis’s hair, tugging him in closer so he could kiss him again, and again. Dennis ran his tongue so lightly over his lower lip that he had to be teasing, but Mac couldn’t imagine having the will to hold back. He crushed their mouths back together, huffing half a laugh when Dennis made a hot little noise and clutched harder at his backside.

“Fuck, fuck.”

Mac was panting just this side of too much, barely able to get enough breath to keep kissing him dirty and deep without feeling like he might suffocate from it. Dennis didn’t seem too inclined to let him rest, bearing down on him insistently. His fingers edged up Mac’s t-shirt only to immediately get stuck on the skin right above where his jeans ended, and Mac groaned lowly. Dennis evidently took that as encouragement because he slipped that hand further up his back, pressing it against bare skin; the other started to move against his ass, not that there was much he could do through denim. Mac got the picture anyway.

Mac pressed him harder into the sink, fitting their mouths back together, until Dennis made an unhappy little whine. Mac tucked his face into his neck instead, laving him in hot, wet kisses and breathing, “Sorry…Sorry…You okay?”

“Just digging into my back,” Dennis gasped, head tipping back prettily again. Mac scraped his teeth against the arch where his neck met his shoulder and felt Dennis shiver.

Mac took a long minute to suck at the curve below his ear, to lick at his pulse, to brush his lips against his jaw — before he managed to pull away enough to speak. For all his complaining, Dennis didn’t seem in a rush to stop him, even though he was still being pushed hard into the counter. He just dug his nails into him and arched closer, hips inching up.

“No problem,” said Mac at last, and he twisted around, pulling Dennis with him until he was the one being pressed into the wall beside the sink.

Dennis’s mouth found his again, tongue insistent and forceful on Mac’s, pushing him into a fast, relentless rhythm. Mac’s hand slid down, over his ass, down to cup at the back of his thigh. Dennis moved easily with him when Mac pulled on his leg until his thigh was hitched halfway up Mac’s hip, and Mac tilted his head to kiss him again as he reached to grab his ass. Dennis shivered harder than before, pressing his body down against him. He rolled his hips, cock pressing in on Mac’s and dragging.

Mac choked. He clutched at Dennis wherever he could reach fastest and immediately rocked up to do it again, a low moan escaping him. The third time he did it, thrusting up into that sweet pressure, Dennis bit down hard on his shoulder.

“ _Mac_.”

They clamored around the tiny space again. Attempting not to break their mouths apart for more than a second at a time, Mac tried to push Dennis up onto the counter where they’d done all the coke, but there wasn’t enough space to hold him. Dennis stood on flat feet again, panting and running his hands up the front of Mac’s shirt. Mac watched his own fingers trail down Dennis’s arms, mindless and stupid and obsessed with how the rough pads his fingertips felt against Dennis’s skin. Dennis was shaking minutely, maybe from all the liquor and drugs. Mac watched his skin heat and flush wherever his hands touched and drank it in.

“Coke is my favorite thing in the world,” Mac said without thinking, and Dennis laughed.

“Yeah,” he said vaguely, already busy again with pressing his hands up Mac’s chest. He flattened his palms out, grinning and tipping his face in close.

Mac glanced up at his looming smile and pulled him roughly back in to kiss, biting at his lip and feeling Dennis’s own tongue come out to soothe the bite before pushing into Mac’s mouth. Mac fisted his hands back through Dennis’s hair, yanking harshly.

They kissed for a long time before Dennis pushed Mac up against the bathroom door instead, fingers scrabbling to pull on his waistband. Mac spread his legs to give Dennis room to get in between them, and he sank into the offered space eagerly, still tugging on his jeans. Mac wasn’t sure what he was going for, exactly, and was about to say that that wasn’t the best way to get them off of him when Dennis suddenly slid his hands around to tuck his index fingers down the sides of Mac’s jeans. He pulled him until they were pressed together again, pressing his cock hot and firmly against Mac’s; Dennis smiled against his mouth at the sound that came out of him then.

Dennis pulled away so he could look down between them as he started popping buttons. Mac barely gave him the time to get his jeans undone before he was pressing in close again, pushing Dennis’s hands out of the way so he could get his mouth on his neck. He seemed so focused on getting Mac semi-naked that Dennis didn’t even seem bothered by the sweat creeping down his throat, and Mac hastened to press his tongue there, following its path back up to its origin. Dennis’s hands found his biceps and squeezed.

Mac pressed his mouth to the underside of his jaw. His fingers were already reaching, scrambling to tug on Dennis’s belt and unloop it. He pulled it halfway out and then got frustrated and gave up, moving to pull on his zipper and buttons instead. Dennis laughed, melodic somehow, even as he touched light hands to Mac’s face and pulled him in to kiss fiercely on the mouth.

Mac pulled away so he could look at what his hands were doing, finally managing to undo Dennis’s jeans and shove at them now that he was focused on it.

“God, you’re fucking sexy,” Mac breathed.

He flicked his gaze back up to Dennis’s face, felt light fingertips on his shoulders. He pulled Dennis closer with hands on his cheeks and kissed him once, liking the needy, half-instinctive way that Dennis’s eyes fluttered closed when he leaned into him. The distinctive angles of his jaw and cheekbones got even prettier when he moved in to get kissed, Mac noticed; and maybe it was bad decorum to keep his eyes open at times like this, but he couldn’t help admiring him. Dennis barely had long enough to bat his eyes back open before Mac tugged him in again, thumbs stroking over the sides of his face. Dennis didn’t move when Mac stopped kissing him the second time, giving him a good view of his hollow, angled cheeks and gently shut eyes.

“Sexy,” Mac breathed again, brushing their mouths together but not really doing it properly. Dennis looked like he wanted nothing more than to stay there as Mac devoured him in whatever way he saw fit.

Mac plunged his hands back between them.

Dennis laughed now, though, not exactly derisively but with a sharp edge to it nonetheless, as he opened his eyes. He groaned a little when Mac fit a hand down the front of his jeans, squeezing around his cock, and his eyes flickered closed again. He jolted when Mac started to move, as much as he could with the limited space; his thrown-open arms were flailing, searching blindly for a hold on something, and he scrambled to get a grip on the counter with one hand and braced the other against the frame of the bathroom door.

Mac couldn’t really get a good angle with the denim still restricting him. Dennis didn’t seem to care, thrusting up against the slightest touches no matter how unrefined. His hand twitched, wild, and he knocked the Ziploc bag over. A puff of white powder exploded out of it, spraying across the counter.

“Watch the goods,” Mac snapped, with as much heat as he could manage while doing his level best to keep half-jerking him off.

“I could say the same thing,” Dennis said, one eye peeking open to glare at him. For emphasis, he tilted his hips up toward Mac’s hand. “This is the worst handjob I’ve ever had.”

Mac scowled.

“Stop begging for me for one goddamn second so I can get your pants off, and we can talk.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. Mac was already scrambling to pull on his belt but Dennis pushed Mac away so he had room to edge his own fingers down between them, brushing against Mac through his undone jeans. Mac choked a little, swaying toward him. Dennis grinned and got a better grip on him, and squeezed. He huffed a laugh against the side of Mac’s cheek at whatever noise he must have made — Mac wasn’t entirely sure. He was still really high and kind of drunk and he was far too focused on swimming through his own spacey head so he could pay attention to what Dennis’s clever hands were doing. Whatever his own body was doing seemed moot to the point.

“ _This_ is how you touch someone else’s dick,” Dennis said, pressing a line of kisses down Mac’s jaw, and then biting down playfully, “in case you were still wondering.”

Mac ran his hands down Dennis’s waist until he found his ass again and squeezed, while Dennis was still toying with him between his legs. Dennis tipped toward him on a little inhale, feet slipping a little on the floor, and Mac slouched uncomfortably against the door in an effort to hold them both up. He grabbed for Dennis’s hips to keep him stable, and Dennis’s hand slipped out of his pants as his palms came down hard on the wood on either side of Mac’s shoulders.

They caught their breaths, gazes snagging, both hesitating a second to make sure that they weren’t going to fall. Dennis pulled back, and Mac straightened up. He ran his hands a little ways up the sides of Dennis’s shirt now that they were on a bit steadier ground.

“This isn’t working,” Dennis said, eyebrows pulled together and mouth twisted in irritation.

What a horrible way for him to look right now, Mac thought dizzily. He pressed his fingertips into Dennis’s lower lip, watching the pink turn pale for a few seconds before Dennis nipped at them teasingly. Mac pushed one corner of his mouth up into a faux smile, and Dennis pushed his hand away entirely.

“What?” Mac asked, glancing away from his mouth for once.

“This isn’t working,” Dennis repeated, louder. “We gotta work something out. Somewhere to sit or something.”

That was a fair point. Mac glanced around, but there wasn’t much in here except the sink, toilet, and the tub for the shower. He glanced back at Dennis, a suggestion on the tip of his tongue. Dennis spread his hands up underneath Mac’s t-shirt.

“I’m not getting jerked off on a toilet,” Dennis deadpanned.

Mac frowned. Dennis was still touching him, almost experimentally like he wanted to catalogue how Mac reacted. He brushed his fingers over his nipples and Mac jerked against him, a breathless sound falling from his lips; Dennis’s grin turned wolfish and he did it again, and Mac angled his hips to rub his cock against Dennis’s through all the layers of their jeans — it wasn’t perfect but it was good enough, since they weren’t doing anything else. Dennis flattened his thumbs against his chest and rubbed relentlessly.

“Well, what do you want from me?” he complained, half a whine from Dennis still teasing him. Mac gripped at his forearms, not pushing him away but needing something to hold himself steady with. “Dee and Charlie are drooling in my bed.”

“What about your parents’ room?” Dennis suggested. His tone would have sounded way more innocent if he didn’t reach down at the same time, one thumb still teasing Mac’s nipple while the other cupped his cock firmly through his jeans. Mac jerked against him again.

“I am _not_ banging in my parents’ room,” said Mac. “They’re gonna wanna go to bed sometime! They could walk in!”

Dennis frowned.

“That’s a good point,” he said, biting his lip. He reassessed the bathroom while Mac considered the other places in his house, but everywhere had people in it. Dennis truly had an incredible ability to cast his gaze elsewhere even while he was pushing Mac’s zipper down even more so he could shove his pants halfway down his thighs. He said instead, “Edge of the tub?”

Mac convulsed hard, Dennis’s fingers tickling up his bare thighs. He said, “Uh huh,” but he didn’t really know what Dennis had just asked him. It didn’t really matter.

Grinning wickedly, Dennis leaned in for a swift kiss. He let Mac go and Mac shoved at his shoulders, watching him fall back a step or two without giving up that stupid, self-satisfied smirk.

“You’re still _such_ an asshole,” Mac said, rolling his eyes, and Dennis just laughed when Mac shoved at him again. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub like directed.

Dennis stayed there, a blush still high on his cheeks and sweat collecting on his hairline, while Mac looked at him for a long few seconds. He was panting, the rise and fall of his chest obvious even from here, but he still wasn’t breathing anywhere near as laboriously as Mac was. Mac looked him over, heat rising in him as he took in the messy, half-fucked picture that he made. He met his eye, and Dennis let a slow smirk crawl over his mouth again as he spread his legs, further and further until his jeans wouldn’t let them go any more. He arched a brow.

Mac leaned down to kiss him hard, a hand twisting up in his hair. Dennis was so _fucking_ infuriating, and he didn’t hesitate to let him know it; he bit down hard on his lip and reached down tug his jeans off, or at least pull them further down until they twisted around his knees. For all his bravado, Dennis groaned and tilted his face up to chase Mac’s mouth when he pulled away. Mac grabbed Dennis’s hips, bruisingly tight, and dropped hard to his knees on the tile floor.

“Fuck you,” Mac breathed, and Dennis laughed, and Mac didn’t even know what they were talking about; he pushed Dennis’s t-shirt up until he pulled it off over his head, letting it fall to the ground beside them. As soon as he was clear of it, Mac leaned down to bite and lick at his bare chest.

“Fuck. Yeah, baby.” Dennis’s next inhale sounded shaky. “Fuck yeah. You look sexy. Do you know that? Do you know how fucking good you look on your knees just for me?”

Mac’s immediate instinct was to pull back, to look him in the eye and let him know just how often he had heard that exact line before — that he did look good, and he was good at what he was doing, and he goddamn knew all of it. But the flush in Dennis’s face was spreading down his chest, too, and Mac’s attention got tempted away from stating the obvious. Suddenly the much more important objective was to drag Dennis’s nipples between his teeth and draw more pretty, needy sounds out of him, even if he had to do it kicking and screaming.

Dennis keened, arching toward his mouth. Mac pulled off with a self-satisfied smile and licked flat and deft over where he would bruise.

Dennis’s fingers were yanking too hard on his hair, and Mac pulled him in a little closer with the hands on his waist. Dennis’s legs inched apart more, though he barely had room to open himself up any more than he was already. Only his jeans were tugged down and he was still in his boxers, but it was obvious how hard he was already anyway; he was leaking a little into them, staining the cotton wet. Mac tugged his underwear down to where his jeans were pooled, licking idly at the new exposed skin. Dennis gasped, shallow and reedy, his hips canting up toward him. His hard cock dragged in the air, nearly touching Mac’s cheek.

Did Dennis know he babbled when he was turned on? Mac wondered. He wanted to tease him, but he didn’t want to risk bringing it to his attention in case it made him stop.

Mac ducked to press his mouth to the insides of his thighs, liking the way Dennis kept petting soothingly through his hair — liking even more, maybe, the compliments and admissions falling freely from his mouth, whether they were actually true or not. Knowing Dennis, they probably weren’t. That didn’t make them any less satisfying.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since high school,” Dennis was saying, mostly to the ceiling.

Mac licked a long line from the pressure point on his inner thigh — the one they used to press on to win at wrestling when they were in high school, because it made their thighs go numb and fall open instinctively — up to the crease where his leg ended. He looked up at Dennis, eyes wide and as innocent as they could possibly be.

“Yeah?” he asked absently, and since he was at the right height anyway, he ducked to suck one of his nipples back into his mouth. Tonguing at it after, he said, “Why didn’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t _know_ I wanted to fuck you back then,” Dennis said, rolling his eyes like it was obvious. The hand in Mac’s hair patted at his head, brushing his hair up into unruly tufts. He was going to look godawful after this.

Mac said, “Hh?” around the mouthful of Dennis’s balls that he had ducked down to suck on.

Even as he jerked up into the warm suction of Mac’s mouth, moaning softly, Dennis didn’t stop petting at his hair. It felt good.

Conversationally, he said, “Yeah, I realized a lot of that after. It wasn’t so obvious, you know, being into dudes. Afterwards, a lot of pieces started falling into place. From before.”

Mac wrapped his hand around his cock, spreading some of the wetness from the head over it to make the slide of his palm smoother. He jacked him off almost absently, more focused on looking up at him instead. Dennis took a long couple of seconds to stop staring at the ceiling and meet his eye.

“I know,” Mac said quietly, finally.

He bent over and wrapped his lips around the head of Dennis’s cock, sucking gently at first but going down farther when Dennis’s tightened the grip in his hair again and started thrusting into his mouth. Mac closed his eyes, getting into it; he didn’t totally realize, at first, when Dennis’s quiet, “ _Ah, ah_. Just like that, you’re so fucking hot,” turned into wordless moans and then skated back into conversation like they had never abandoned the topic.

“I think I knew I wanted to hook up maybe…the fourth or fifth day you came back around,” Dennis said. Mac licked a warm line along the underside of his cock and looked up at him. “You were grinding on this total _jerkoff_ and I couldn’t believe that you would go for such a huge douche like that. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, really? He turned gay for _that_?’ You used to bang some classier chicks back in high school. They weren’t winners or anything, but oh my god. This guy was _such_ a tool. I couldn’t believe it when you went home with him.”

Mac set up a pretty good rhythm of bobbing his head down, letting Dennis fuck shallowly into the warmth of his mouth, and then pulling back to suck at the head when he needed to breathe. He didn’t even gag when Dennis bumped a little farther down his throat every other time he went down, and he was very proud of himself. Mac was no amateur but he had had more than one incident in his past that had involved mistakenly mixing hard liquor with giving bathroom head.

“So I ended up staying up all night thinking about what a colossal loser that guy was,” Dennis went on. Mac’s fingernails dug into the warm meat of Dennis’s exposed thigh. “Especially because I rarely hook up with customers but even when I’m hammered, they’re never that gross. And around, like, six a.m. when I still couldn’t sleep, I realized. Holy shit. I don’t give a shit who you bang — ‘cause like I said, even the chicks you fucked in high school were so, so gross, dude. Better than this guy but not by much. You used to bang my leftovers and some of them were _so_ trashy. And I was like, holy shit. I don’t give a fuck if you bring home Matthew fucking McConaughey!”

Dennis gripped harder at his hair, his breathing picking up a little. Every now and again, his little story got interrupted by his voice hitching and gasping. Mac relaxed his throat by degrees, until he was sure he could take him all the way in, and he worked Dennis deeper and deeper until his cock was in his throat. Dennis groaned, thrusting in tiny jerks against his face. Mac got a hand under him to tug on his balls, drawing out the same pretty moans that he’d earned from sucking on them before. He rolled them in his palm, and Dennis squeezed his eyes shut. His thighs were shaking around Mac’s jaw, and for a few, dangerous seconds, Mac thought he was going to cum without warning him.

But Dennis opened his eyes again at last, breathing leveling out somewhat but still heavy. He loosened his death-grip on Mac’s hair, smoothing his palm almost apologetically over his worn scalp. Mac listened to him swallowing compulsively for a few seconds until the danger passed, and then moaned on his dick just to listen to him gasp, “ _Mac_ , fuck,” and rock faster into his mouth because of the vibrations it made around him.

“It was totally gonna piss me off that you got hot and I never got to suck your dick,” Dennis continued, eventually. He sounded very winded all of a sudden. “Even though I was still mad as hell about you leaving. So I thought, yeah. I have got to get you in bed at least once before you go back to — oh _fuck_ , oh fuck, shit—”

His self-satisfied rant about getting Mac in the sack broke off when Mac picked up the suction around him, and Dennis groaned brokenly as his head tipped back. His mouth was hanging open when Mac opened one eye to chance a peek up at him, which was maybe a mistake — he looked _really_ fucking hot, back arched in an effort to strain as much as himself down Mac’s throat as he could, eyes scrunched shut and head tipped toward the ceiling. Mac squeezed his eyes shut again so he could focus on getting him off, pushing him that last little bit over the edge.

He shoved his free hand up Dennis’s chest, raking his nails down his body hard and catching on a nipple. Choking, Dennis pulled hard on his hair.

His rhythm was wild now, his hips rocking up erratically against Mac’s face, cock shoved down his throat so that Mac couldn’t even blow him with any finesse anymore. He just kneeled there and took it instead, one hand still playing with his balls. The other crept further up his chest until he bypassed it and pressed his thumb into the dip of Dennis’s bottom lip, and Dennis sucked it into his mouth and moaned. His tongue flicked out against it, tasting him, clearly liking it from the way he kept licking at him rapidly; Mac pulled his thumb out and shoved his first two fingers into his mouth instead. Dennis took them in far and moaned louder, sucking sloppily around them, his voice coming out muffled by Mac’s hand. Mac thrust his fingers once, hard, further onto Dennis’s tongue and Dennis came loudly.

He was good, not biting down on Mac’s fingers like he was half-afraid that he might; Dennis tightened his hands in Mac’s hair until it stung again, fucking up into his mouth one last time as he spilled down his throat. Mac swallowed, over and over, licking up the errant trails meandering down Dennis’s cock until Dennis shivered hard. Mac’s hands dropped first, his tongue making one last path up the underside of his cock and over the head before he pulled away.

Panting, Mac swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and sat back on his heels, legs spread around his own hard dick, looking up at him. He came away with a little cum on one of his fingers, and he shook it out in the bath to the side of Dennis’s thigh.

Dennis looked fucking debauched, sitting on the edge of the tub with his thighs thrown open and his chest dark red from Mac’s nails and tongue, softening cock still wet, his jeans pulled haphazardly down to his knees. He was breathing hard, and color was still spreading down his chest and over his cheeks and beyond. His eyes were closed, and even though he wasn’t smiling there was a strange, peaceful little edge to his expression. Like a small piece of the big, huge ball of stress and anger he always carried around with him had been chipped off and tossed.

“So,” said Mac, rocking back on his haunches, and his voice sounded wrecked even to his own ears, “you stayed up all night thinking about me fucking you stupid, huh?”

Dennis’s eyes sprang open, shock and irritation flaring up in his face at once. Mac was laughing already, though, and Dennis’s mouth twitched as some of the defensiveness melted. He still kicked pretty hard at Mac’s kneecap, though.

“Jesus!” Mac hissed. Dennis looked pretty goddamn self-satisfied as he stood and pulled his pants back up to his waist, although he didn’t redo them. “You’re such a douchebag. I just sucked your dick!”

“And it was great,” Dennis assured him. He ruffled Mac’s hair as he stepped around him, and Mac swatted his hands away, standing too. Dennis cast a haughty look over his shoulder. “Give me a second, okay? I came down from this high, like, ten minutes ago.”

Dennis was already pushing around some of the coke that he’d sprayed everywhere earlier, assembling it into a little pile. Mac leaned over his shoulder, murmuring, “Yeah — make me a line, too,” and pressing his fingertips into Dennis’s waist, and Dennis rolled his eyes.

After they each snorted their share, Dennis pressed Mac up against the wall beside the tub and pushed his jeans and underwear down to his calves. He kissed hot and deft at Mac’s throat as he lifted his hand up to his face.

“Get it wet for me, Mac,” Dennis whispered, not moving his lips away from right over where Mac’s pulse was already racing.

Mac groaned, legs spreading a little as he sank into the wall. Dennis chuckled, shoving his knee between Mac’s thighs to keep him upright. Mac grinded down on him instantly, reaching to wrap his hands around Dennis’s shoulders for balance.

“ _Fuck_.” Mac strained, trying to thrust down on Dennis’s thigh without having much leverage. “Dennis…”

“I can’t wait to touch you, baby,” Dennis breathed into the side of his neck, errant hand squeezing his ass. “God, you already sound fucking beautiful for me and I’ve barely even gotten started. This is gonna be so good, you’re gonna sound so good.”

“Then fucking do it, asshole,” Mac grumbled. “Don’t just talk about it — I thought you laid awake at night thinking about fucking me?”

“Hey,” said Dennis sharply, pulling away from his neck to glare as he pinched him sharply on the hip. Mac yelped, shoving futilely at his chest, but Dennis didn’t let him go anywhere. “Do what I ask for once and I can give it to you, you dumb bitch.”

Mac nipped at his fingers a little, because he really did deserve it. Then he anchored Dennis’s hand in front of him with fingers wrapped tight around his wrist, pressing into his palm. Dennis immediately went back to showering him in quiet adorations as soon as he started licking his hand with flat, wet strokes of his tongue. When he wasn’t complimenting him, Dennis was kissing his neck again. He seemed to have a particular fixation with Mac jaw, scraping his teeth against his beard and seeming to lean into it when it scratched at Dennis’s cheek.

Dennis tugged Mac’s earlobe between his teeth, giving it a gentle pull, and Mac leaned his head back against the wall.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dennis murmured nonsensically. He pressed a short kiss to where his pulse was hammering and leaned up to look him in the eye, swiping a gentle thumb right across a cheekbone. “You’re gonna look fucking sexy, I wanna watch you.”

Mac closed his eyes when Dennis wrapped his hand around him. He was almost experimental at first, his grip loose, not pulling too hard. Mac fucked up into the circle of his fist anyway, wanting more; he groaned, throat working around nothing.

“Dennis,” he gasped, “More, come on. I know you know—”

He opened his eyes then, meeting Dennis’s gaze. Dennis suddenly smirked, a wide, very pleased smile stretching his cheeks. Whatever he saw in Mac’s face made him tighten his grip just right, twisting his wrist and starting to jerk him off in earnest. His brow furrowed, apparently concentrating very hard on the job; Mac swallowed and thought about preserving some of his dignity for a long moment, instead of asking Dennis to kiss him. His palms lay flat against the wall behind him, his fingernails scraping at the shitty wallpaper that his parents had slapped on it when he was four.

Dennis gritted his teeth, apparently laser-focused on what he was doing. Only when Mac let out a long, strangled groan did his expression smooth over and he grinned for a split second before ducking his face back into Mac’s neck.

“Yeah?” he breathed. “That feel good, Mac? Do you like that?”

Mac clawed helplessly at the wall behind him.

“Yeah,” he choked out, voice hitching even on the small word.

Dennis laughed, his face still hidden.

“You wanna expand on that?” he prompted, but Mac just leaned his head back further and worked on gulping down air.

“Got nothing else to say,” Mac ground out.

Dennis rolled his eyes, his hands still moving; his free one reached to grab Mac’s ass, and when Mac inhaled sharply and helplessly, Dennis pulled his mouth away from Mac’s jaw long enough to look him intently in the eye. Something was making his forehead crease like that, Mac was sure, but he was a little too busy to waste time wondering about what it was. He closed his eyes again instead, focusing on the feeling of Dennis’s nail running teasingly down the length of his dick before he wrapped his hand back around him.

Dennis squeezed his ass once, and then his fingers slipped down to touch high up on the back of his thigh. Mac shuddered out a long moan, rocking up into his hand on instinct. Dennis, miraculously, chuckled.

“Interesting…” he breathed. “Interesting.”

Mac peeked open an eye. “What? What’s interesting?”

Dennis didn’t answer. He ducked to put his mouth back on Mac’s collarbone, but his other hand was moving with more purpose now. He squeezed Mac’s ass in his free hand again, the other still working smoothly on his cock — and as he dropped that one to tug on Mac’s balls, the hand on Mac’s ass drifted until his fingertips brushed along his crack. Mac shivered hard, digging his nails into Dennis’s arms where he gripped at him for balance.

“Dennis,” he breathed.

Dennis’s mouth pressed sporadically along the tendon on his neck until he made it up to Mac’s ear, and he flicked his tongue against the shell of it. His wandering fingers pressed further against Mac’s ass until they were trailing up near his hole, and Mac ducked his face down into Dennis’s shoulder so it would be slightly less embarrassing when he started gasping.

“Oh, yeah,” Dennis said on a bright laugh, and his hand disappeared from Mac’s backside so he could press his palm to Mac’s cheek instead, and angle him back down against Dennis’s lips.

Mac whimpered into his open mouth. Dennis reached to pinch his ass again as he smiled against Mac’s lips briefly and then flicked his tongue out for a proper kiss.

“I see right through you,” Dennis declared between kisses.

“Can you shut your goddamn, egotistical mouth for fucking two seconds and play with my ass, bro?”

Dennis pulled back, ignoring Mac automatically chasing after his lips, and glared at him. Mac opened his mouth to say something, anything to backtrack and have him go back to touching him — but then Dennis just started to suck on his own fingers, still managing to glower at Mac while he did it. His hand was only off him for less than a minute, and then he dragged Mac back down until he could roll his tongue along the roof of his mouth, and with his now-wet fingers he pressed between Mac’s cheeks and rubbed deliberately over his asshole. Mac let out a strangled noise, hips jerking back. Dennis grinned against his jaw and pressed a swift kiss to his cheek.

“Yep, that’s it.” His voice was low, almost coaxing. His wrist twisted on Mac’s cock, squeezing tighter. Mac thrust up into his hand with a low noise, arching back against his fingers the next second, chasing both pressures. Dennis rubbed a little harder against his hole, like he was going to push in and finger him finally, and Mac moaned into his mouth.

He reached to twist his hand into Dennis’s hair and pulled on it hard.

“Do it,” he said — he meant it to come out a lot more commanding than it did, but he just sounded desperate and breathy. He found himself rambling before he could think twice about it. “Don’t you wanna touch me, Dennis? I promise my ass feels as good as you think it looks. Even better than my dick, you’ll love it. You’re gonna think about getting your mouth on it next—”

“Alright, alright!”

He sounded almost _angry_. Mac shut up, throat working around the words he wasn’t saying. If Dennis wasn’t going to take that bait, then he didn’t know what else would convince him. Jesus Christ, he thought; he would really do almost anything to get Dennis to press his long, beautiful fingers inside of him — his mind skipped and danced around, trying to work out how to convince Dennis to thrust inside him from a different angle, but he felt like he was working through several layers of fog.

Dennis kissed him again before he could work it out. His tongue was heavy and demanding against Mac’s, and pushing against it in a steady rhythm took up most of his attention for a while. Dennis rubbed his thumb against the underside of the head of his cock and stopped jacking him long enough to lick his hand a couple of times, getting it wet again. He twisted his palm against the head of his dick, wetting it further with Mac’s precum and spreading it down his cock with loose fingers as he pulled on him again.

“Come on,” Mac said, voice teetering on the totally manly side of a whine. His hips stuttered up toward Dennis’s touch again, helpless against it despite how he told himself to be still. “Dennis, I — You—”

“Alright, _alright_.”

Dennis exhaled a long-suffering sigh, but his eyes were bright. He sucked on his index finger again for half a minute, ducking to cover Mac’s mouth with his own again as soon as he was done. This time when he pressed his finger back against Mac’s ass, he only rubbed it over his hole a couple of times before gently pushing it past his rim and inside him.

Mac’s fingers tightened on Dennis’s forearms. His head tipped back until he was leaning against the wall again, and Dennis almost immediately started covering his collar and the upper half of his chest in warm, wet laves of his mouth. That last line of coke was still drumming inside him, and every touch to his skin felt like sparking steel on flint.

Dennis may not have known Mac’s ass that well, yet, but he had clearly done this before. He pressed his finger just this side of rough inside of him, and it was stimulating without being overwhelming. Mac anchored his mouth to the underside of Dennis’s jaw and suckled gently, not hard enough to mark him up but enough that Dennis grinned up at the ceiling and jerked him off with the perfect pressure and the perfect speed, like Mac had done well and he wanted to reciprocate the feeling. God, but he was good at this.

“You were right,” Dennis breathed.

Mac blinked his way to semi-consciousness. “What?”

But Dennis didn’t elaborate; he pressed a second finger inside of him and dragged it alongside the first. He wasn’t stretching him open, really, just pushing and thrusting inside him, and that edge of being just-not-enough pulled Mac along with a warm heat behind his naval. Dennis let his cock go to twist his fingers along Mac’s balls again, and when he started to touch his dick after that, it was while a thick burst of pleasure was exploding in his chest.

“I’m gonna,” Mac hissed, throat working around his complete lack of air. “Den, _Den_. Dennis—”

Dennis, predictably, was rambling again.

“Yeah you fucking are,” he said. He chuckled, low and dirty, against the side of Mac’s neck.

Dennis’s long fingers rubbed hard inside of him. He didn’t seem to be searching for it, what with the steady, aimless thrusting he was doing, but he found that hot and incredible spot inside of him after a few minutes anyway when his fingers curved just right. Mac pitched forward into Dennis’s arms, fucking hard up into his hand. An incomprehensible noise slipped out of him. He realized he was panting Dennis’s name only because Dennis smiled briefly against his mouth as he angled him in, their lips sliding seamlessly together.

“I told you you’d sound fucking sexy,” Dennis breathed against his cheek after. Mac whined softly, his hips snapping up against Dennis’s hand. Dennis’s fingers pulled out to flick and tease lightly at his rim before he pressed them in a long stroke back inside him, quickly seeking that spot out again. Mac choked quietly against his throat. “Yeah, listen to you. You love this shit, huh? I could do this for hours. I could drag out every noise you didn’t even know you wanted to make. It’s all for me, isn’t it, sweetheart? It’s all because of me—”

“Will you _shut up_ ,” Mac ground out, “with your goddamn narcissistic _bullshit_?”

Dennis pulled his mouth away from Mac abruptly. His fingers stilled inside him, too. Only the hand on Mac’s dick kept working, sliding smoothly over his length and tightening its grip to jerk him off steady and good.

“Don’t make fun of me, man.”

“Spend more time getting me off and less time trying to get hard again with your goddamn ego trip.”

Dennis’s breathy, insulted inhale got cut off halfway through when Mac pressed his mouth back to Dennis’s, huffing a laugh against his lips. Dennis immediately redoubled his efforts, his hand tightening almost painfully around Mac’s cock, his fingers sinking deeper inside his ass. Mac licked pointed and demanding against Dennis’s lower lip and slid his tongue over it to press against Dennis’s own.

Dennis kissed him messy and dirty while he fingered him. He was jerking him off fast now, and Mac kept letting out little helpless noises while he rocked up into the incredible tight pressure of it. Dennis kept pausing in kissing him dirty to suck on either of his lips, building the onslaught of sensation.

Mac dug his fingers deeper into Dennis’s arms, hips working smoothly up into his fist and back down on his long, crooked fingers.

“Right there, right there. Just like that,” he chanted, eyes closed tight, head tipped back against the wall. “ _Dennis,_ fuck yes, just there—”

Dennis lavished his neck and jaw in warm kisses, tongue probing but clearly distracted as his hands worked harder. Mac jerked his hips back until Dennis’s two fingers were pressed fully inside him, and they probed out his sweet spot right as Mac gave a final choked cry and came hard. He rubbed back on Dennis’s hand, hips rocking in small jerks over and over against it. Dennis pressed his lips against Mac’s collar and worked his cock through it while Mac took care of all the sensation inside of him.

Mac was panting hard as he came down. Dennis’s fingers slowed on his softening cock, until Mac shivered too hard with overstimulation and Dennis released him immediately. He slipped his fingers out of Mac’s ass much slower, clearly trying to do it as smoothly as possible; still, he pressed a soft, apologetic kiss to Mac’s shoulder when he pulled them free.

Mac slumped back against the wall, still breathing hard. He leaned the small of his back against his hands, pressing them into the drywall. Dennis looked at him for a long moment before he laughed quietly, shaking his head. Mac tilted his head up toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. He heard the tap turn on a few seconds later, and then turn off again after a minute.

Mac had his racing heart mostly under control again when he felt Dennis’s hands, now cold and slightly damp from the sink, press into his cheeks. Smiling slightly, Mac leaned into the ensuing kiss without opening his eyes. Dennis pulled away after a long few seconds. He could still feel him hovering, though, right in front of his face.

“Happy Dad’s Out of Prison Day,” Dennis breathed.

Mac rolled his eyes and jabbed Dennis hard between the ribs. Dennis let out a noise that sounded like the bastard lovechild of a yelp and a laugh, and Mac couldn’t help poking him again and again, watching delightedly as the same sound spilled out of him every single time.

“Mac! Stop sucking.” He slapped at one of his wrists.

“Come on,” said Mac, snorting, reaching up to ruffle Dennis’s hair. Dennis ducked out of the way, mumbling about his good looks as he fixed himself in the mirror over Mac’s shoulder. Mac let him do it for a few seconds before he shoved at his arm. “Leave it, you already look like you just got blown. Let’s go kick out the rest of the guests or pass out in our own vomit or something.”

“You’re so gross, dude.”

That fact apparently didn’t stop Dennis at all, as Mac pulled up and redid his jeans and Dennis just stood where he’d fallen back after laughing, pressed close to him but not touching the whole time. Mac turned away.

“Whatever. You’ll be begging me to blow you again tomorrow.”

Dennis snorted a laugh and leaned against Mac’s back, arms gently encircling him as his hands sought out the fleshy lower part of Mac’s stomach. Mac ignored him and reached to readjust his shirt, until it was no longer askew and riding halfway up his chest; Dennis pulled his hands back just far enough to have the fabric slide between them before he grabbed him again.

“Not likely,” he said, scoffing, his breath ghosting along the back of Mac’s neck. His hands massaged at Mac’s torso, big and warm against his flushed, sensitive skin even through his t-shirt.

“Are you kidding me? Look at you.”

“Look at _you_ ,” said Dennis, fingers tapping against Mac’s waist a couple of times before he shifted slightly away to grab his own shirt from the floor and tug it on. “You were just begging me to fingerbang you, bro. I was there. I remember that happening just now. You know that, right? I was there for that.”

Mac hummed, “ _Mhmm_ ,” elbowing at him even as Dennis ducked around his sharp blows to shuffle up against his back again. He snickered, brushing his mouth against Mac’s shoulder. Mac shrugged him off, muttering, “Stop being a bitch, man. See how you feel when I finger _you_ ,” while he rolled his eyes and reached to grab for the coke so he could shove the bag back into his pocket. Leaning over for it made his ass press back against Dennis, though, which would have been fine except Dennis took it as an opportunity to reach around him and start fumbling with the button on his pants. Mac snorted, jamming his elbows back at him again.

“Do you mind?” said Mac, pushing the Ziploc into his jeans and then scooping up Dennis’s ID too. “Here’s this, by the way.”

“Thanks,” said Dennis distractedly.

He pushed his license back into his wallet and shoved it all in his back pocket. Mac rolled his eyes, reaching to pull Dennis closer with a hand on either side of his face, and Dennis grinned at him. Mac brushed their mouths together lightly, and then let him go and spun around. Dennis laughed again, fingers pushing insistently on his belt again.

“So you don’t want me to jerk you off again, or—?”

“You are such a slut, bro.”

“I’m just saying. You—”

“You so are! I already said I’d fingerfuck you later, so you could let—”

“And I’m sure you fingerblast great! Doesn’t mean we can’t bang until—”

“Shut the fuck _up_ , bitch. I know you’re just dicking around ‘cause it’s been, like, two seconds, but—”

Mac pulled open the door the rest of the way, looking up from where he was laughing with Dennis over his shoulder, and whatever he was going to say next died in his throat. Their smiles faded. Mac’s hand, still on the knob, suddenly felt very warm and sweaty. He swallowed, blinking fast, flushing hotter than he had in all the time that Dennis was just touching him.

“Hey, Dad.”

Luther stood in front of them, unmoving and entirely intimidating. Mac was suddenly very aware that his jeans were undone, and he moved to zip them up as though that would somehow be less incriminating, or like Luther maybe hadn’t noticed yet. But his twitching hands made Luther glance down, and Mac kept them pressed to his sides instead. His dad was just staring dead-eyed at the both of them, his mouth pressed tightly shut, his expression stony, and his eyes unblinking as they always were.

Dennis brushed Mac’s side when he lifted his hand to sweep at his hair. Mac didn’t turn around to see what Dennis’s face was doing, but he really, really wished he would step away from his back.

“Hey, Mr. Mac,” Dennis said carefully. “Um, this isn’t—”

Luther held up a hand. Dennis quieted down behind him. They all looked at each other for another few beats, and Mac swallowed. All the stolen coke that he had on him was burning a hole through his pocket, and as much as he dreaded admitting that he’d used up even more of his stash than just the pills wasted by the spilled punch, redirecting Luther’s attention suddenly seemed like a much better decision than letting this moment stretch on. Even if it was the nuclear option, at least he could come away from this with the closet door safely shut tight.

“We were just—” said Mac.

“Stop.”

Mac held his breath. Dennis’s presence behind him was fading the longer they stood there, not like he was finally drifting back, but like Mac was disconnecting from his own body a little bit. The remnants of all the coke and vodka he’d had tonight wasn’t helping the situation any at all, but now wasn’t really a good time to feel drunk.

“Please don’t kill us,” Dennis said, his voice pitched too high and small.

Luther ignored him, blinking at Mac. Without saying anything else, he turned and walked away.

Mac gaped numbly at the spot where he’d just been for a long moment. He didn’t turn his head, but he was vaguely aware in his peripheral vision that Luther had trundled back down the stairs. He had no idea where he went after that, the sound of his footsteps fading out as he hit the bottom. Suddenly Mac was aware that the music downstairs had been turned off, but he didn’t know when that had happened.

Dennis’s hand was on his shoulder, spinning him partially around. Dennis’s voice was in his ear, murmuring something — murmuring his name, Mac realized after a moment. He felt Dennis’s fingers brush down near his lap again and startled, bursting halfway out of his fugue to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, but then Dennis just zipped his jeans back up and carefully rethreaded his belt for him. Mac deflated and didn’t say anything after all.

Dennis pulled on his shoulder again, and Mac turned around and pushed past him. Dennis was quiet, still, even though Mac shoved him so hard that he stumbled into the wall — he just found his balance and watched Mac sit down hard on the closed lid of the toilet. Mac couldn’t drag his eyes anywhere but the floor to check for himself, but he dimly wondered what was going on around him.

After awhile he grew aware of Dennis standing near him again, saying something else. He also began to notice that something was nudging at his wrist, an irritating, insistent pressure. He swatted it away.

Dennis sighed. “Come on, buddy. Take it.”

Mac looked up at him, blinking slowly. “Huh?”

The annoying bumping was a solo cup. Dennis must have disappeared at some point to get it, although he didn’t really remember that happening. Mac glanced down and all he really saw was the clear liquid sloshing around in it; he grabbed for the cup, opening his throat up to down the vodka without having to taste it, but when he put it in his mouth it was only water after all. Mac sighed, pulling the cup away, but before he could get too far Dennis’s fingers were touching the rim and pressing it back down into Mac’s lower lip.

“Drink it,” he said again. He still sounded unnervingly, abnormally gentle.

Mac noticed that Dennis was rubbing his back around the same time that he noticed his cheeks were damp. He chugged the rest of the water and then pushed the cup back at Dennis, crumpling it a little under the unsteadiness of his grip, and as soon as his hands were free he scrubbed them against his face to wipe it clean. Dennis brushed his fingers through Mac’s hair once, and dropped it back to rub pressure between his shoulder blades.

“Okay, okay,” Mac mumbled.

He pushed at Dennis’s hands, uncoordinated and frantic, and Dennis backed away immediately. When Mac slumped over again, digging his elbows into his lap and burying his face in his hands, he could still see Dennis moving toward the sink through his fingers.

There must have been a fair amount of coke left on the countertop, because Dennis scraped enough into a pile that he could lean over and sniffle it down. Mac watched him straighten up and snorted, letting his hands drop down between his knees, sitting up a little straighter. Dennis turned around and caught his eye.

“Hey,” he said. He swiped the back of his hand across his nose and drifted back over to him, fingers rucking up some of Mac’s hair again as soon as he was close enough to bury them in it.

Mac sighed, tilting his head back to look up into his face. Dennis offered him the barest hint of a smile.

“Come on,” Dennis said quietly, jerking his head toward the open door. “It’s time for bed.”

Mac said nothing, still sitting there. Dennis just ran his fingers through Mac’s hair over and over for a few long moments, not pushing him. Then he dropped his hand to close over Mac’s upper arm, and he didn’t pull on him but Mac stood up anyway. Dennis’s hand dropped to touch Mac’s ribs instead, half-looping his arm around Mac’s waist but not injecting any pressure into it.

They still didn’t have a place to sleep, but Dennis led him back down the hall toward his bedroom. Mac trailed a little bit behind him, and every few steps Dennis glanced over his shoulder at him with parted lips. Not quite smiling.

Dennis had to kick some of the spilled CDs under the bed to make enough space on the floor for them, and Mac sighed, glancing around the room. He was pretty sure, from the smell alone, that Charlie had already pissed in the bed after all, and he was not looking forward to all the shit he was going to have to do in the morning.

Dennis tugged a pillow out from underneath Dee’s head and tossed it to the cleared area he’d made on the ground. He disappeared for a couple of seconds after that, but Mac didn’t even have time to decide if he should lay down yet or not before Dennis came back with one of their spare comforters from the hall closet stacked in his arms. He nodded at the ground, and Mac stripped off his jeans and obligingly laid down on the floor, pressing his head into most of the pillow. Dennis was going to be pissed about him hogging it.

But if he was, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead he draped the comforter over Mac, and Mac twisted his fingers into it immediately. He didn’t want Dennis to go, but he didn’t want to speak up about it either; a fight was the very last thing in the world that he was in the mood for, now.

Dennis didn’t go. He dug around in Mac’s drawers until he found a pair of basketball shorts to steal, and then slipped under the blanket beside Mac, only grumbling a little about the pillow while he did so. Mac rolled onto his back, lifting up his arm, and Dennis shuffled close enough to him that Mac could wrap it around his shoulders and let Dennis share some of the pillow, or at least cradle his head in Mac’s shoulder instead.

Dennis tightened an arm around Mac’s waist, nuzzling closer to him. Mac dropped his hand to the floor beside Dennis’s back and exhaled.

“Get some sleep,” Dennis whispered, the warmth of his breath spreading across Mac’s neck. He rubbed his thumb in a little line against Mac’s waist. “Hey, hey. Go on. It’ll be better tomorrow.”

Twelve hours ago, if somebody had told Mac that he would fall asleep tonight beside all three of his best friends from high school, with the taste of Dennis on his tongue, still drunk enough to make the room fuzzy, after railing premium-grade coke for the better part of an hour, with his limbs all loose from the very recent orgasm he’d just had, he would have said that it was impossible for things _not_ to keep getting better from here.

Now, he wasn’t sure that that was ever going to be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the idea of doing coke and hooking up in the bathroom is from "once you get it, you never want to quit" by myfavouritesweater...i'm obsessed with the fic and i'm OBSESSED with the concept. the theory is that you can never have too many drug-fueled makeouts in the bathroom.
> 
> dennis may be the bastard man but mac would gladly let me die for him. and i'd do it in a heartbeat. [xo](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/181712391280)


	7. a million bad habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac (sort of) deals with the morning after the party, his dad, and this new territory with Dennis.

The light from the bedroom window slanted in at a very strange angle. Mac rolled onto his side with a low groan, and he went to move his arm up to cover his eyes — except there was something pinning it down to the floor. He grunted and shifted further onto his side, shuffling up against something solid.

And warm. Mac inched even closer to it, and it snuffled a little and mumbled unintelligibly. Mac opened his eyes right as Dennis tilted his head to look up at him.

“Hey,” Mac said, his voice thick and rough with sleep.

Dennis said something that sounded mostly like, “ _Hhngh_ ,” but Mac was already well-versed in communication that consisted mostly of grunting and moaning from knowing his mom for so long. He took it as Dennis saying _“good morning_ ” and pulled him in closer with the arm looped around his waist. Dennis buried his face in Mac’s shoulder and said nothing, but his ankle twisted in between Mac’s calves.

Mac burrowed his nose closer to Dennis’s hair. He liked the way Dennis smelled, even though his natural musk was masked by that of stale vodka and beer, and he was rank enough that he needed a shower. Normally Mac would have pushed him off, but he was sleepy. Even the fact that Dennis smelled pretty strongly of men’s balls could be ignored because for one, they were Mac’s, and two, Mac probably reeked that way himself. He tightened his arm around Dennis and smiled a little into his hair when he felt some of his fingers latch onto the front of Mac’s shirt.

Their position twisted together was mostly good, but now that he had woken up a little, certain points of discomfort were beginning to prick up in the back of his mind and become irritating. For one: Dennis’s knobby wrists were digging into the concavity between his ribs from where his hands were clasped together against Mac’s chest. That one he could probably live with. For another, though: he was lying on the goddamn floor. Lastly: the light was still bright, and Mac groped around for the comforter that was thrown over them until he could pull it up over his head. Dennis grumbled something in protest and started clawing at the blanket until his face was free again. Mac poked at his thigh.

“Do you mind?”

“Me? Do _you_?” Dennis said, voice still slurry and quiet. “You’re the one trying to suffocate me.”

“S’bright,” Mac mumbled, still without opening his eyes.

He rolled over onto his other side, pulling on the blanket until his face was covered again. Dennis grumbled something else, and a couple of seconds later he was pressing himself gently against Mac’s back. Mac whispered some expletives at him, but otherwise didn’t protest as Dennis tugged on his shirt, stretching it out across his ribs, and insinuated his ankle back between Mac’s legs. He leaned back against Dennis’s body under the blanket, feeling himself drift toward sleep again. Dennis’s nose brushed the skin right over his spine.

Mac breathed once, twice, three times, slipping away from consciousness — then the floorboards creaked over his head, and something plush hit him hard in the face.

Mac let out a shout, his arm waving wildly to get the blanket off his face so he could see who was accosting him. He found air again right as he got whacked a second time, and Mac rolled over toward Dennis. Even as he protested, one hand slipping across Mac’s sides and landing on his stomach to push him off, he twisted his free hand into the back of Mac’s shirt to keep him steady, even though Mac was lying on that arm and it couldn’t be comfortable. They both ended up getting elbowed a lot, and Dennis’s arm was still trapped underneath him when they stopped flailing.

“Wake up,” somebody said above them, and Mac twisted around to look up at Charlie. Charlie nudged him in the ass with one foot. “Who wants to go get some breakfast? I puked up, like, everything I’ve ever eaten last night. I need to fill my stomach.”

He pointed to the side of the bed. There were flecks of vomit around the trashcan that Mac could see from here, but at least he seemed to have landed most of it inside.

Mac looked back at up Charlie, and then down at Dennis; they met each other’s eye for barely a second before scrambling to get to their feet, and to stop touching so much.

“We’re not—” said Dennis.

“That wasn’t—”

“That was not what it looked like,” said Dennis, laughing a little. “Um, you guys were asleep in the bed, you know, and everyone else was already passed out all over the house. We needed somewhere that we could crash…”

“Plus it’s not like we fucked or anything,” Mac said loudly.

Beside him, Dennis cringed hard. His hands, still aloft from gesticulating with the force of his excuses, clenched into fists and he dropped them back by his sides to swing loosely. Charlie raised his eyebrows. He looked gently disinterested.

Standing up was maybe even more damning than staying curled together on the floor would have been anyway; Mac was still stripped out of his pants entirely, and Dennis was wearing that loose pair of Mac’s old shorts.  Mac glanced down at Dennis’s thighs and then away. He looked back at Charlie just as Charlie was redirecting his attention from Mac’s bare legs.

“Uh—” said Mac, glancing at him.

Dennis was looking at the floor. He scratched idly at the back of his head, and mumbled, “I’m uh…I gotta piss.”

He edged around Charlie and disappeared from Mac’s room without looking back at either of them. Mac held his breath for a long few seconds before letting it out slowly, and Charlie turned back to look at him with a bored expression.

“So…breakfast?” said Charlie. “I don’t know how much you’ve explored around here since you got back, but there’s this diner that just opened up a few years ago. It’s only a couple blocks away. Plus there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way, so Dennis can grab some coffee that he actually likes—”

“I don’t care about what Dennis likes,” Mac said quickly.

Charlie looked at him strangely, then. His head tilted a little and he squinted at him, and Mac looked back with his breath held for a very long moment before he sighed.

“Okay, look,” said Mac, fiddling idly with the bottom of his t-shirt. There was a big Hawaiian punch stain on it that he did not remember acquiring; he’d need a shower before he did anything today for sure. “Me and Dennis, we didn’t — I mean, we _did_ …We just — we should have told you—”

“Mac, buddy.” Charlie laughed, stepping forward to put a placating hand on Mac’s chest. If he’d laid it on the other side, he would have been placing it right over his rabbiting heart. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”

Charlie never touched anybody for long, and he didn’t now either. He quickly shoved both of his hands into his jeans’ pockets and stepped back, putting more distance between them. Mac didn’t take it personally. He sat down on the edge of his bed instead, carefully avoiding the big stain where he could see Charlie had peed in the night after all, as well as where Dee was still curled up drooling into his mattress.

“I’m…We should have told you that we were…You know. Doing something,” said Mac, eyes on his feet as he kicked at the floor. “Or…I don’t know. We’re not doing anything!”

“Well which is it?” said Charlie. “Are you doing something or not? ‘Cause listen, bro, I don’t really give a shit either way, but don’t pussy around it if you’re gonna—”

“We’re not _really_ doing something, but we’ve _done_ stuff,” said Mac. He rubbed his fist into one eye; he was way too tired to be having this conversation, but here he was having it anyway. Sort of. From the bathroom, he heard the toilet flush and then the shower turn on a few seconds later. “Or, like—”

“Mac, let me stop you right there.” Charlie waved a hand at him to shut him up, and Mac fell silent, twisting his hands together in his lap. “I don’t give a shit if you and Dennis are doing anything. Alright?”

Mac watched his feet kicking again. One of his toes brought up the end of the rug under his bed, and he kept his eyes on it digging down further underneath the rug like that was infinitely more pressing than looking at Charlie directly.

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled. He glanced back up at him earnestly. “I just, like, didn’t want you to be mad. Like maybe I was fucking up coming back.”

Charlie’s forehead pinched together. Mac watched him work through what Mac was telling him, giving him ample time; Charlie always did need longer to piece things together than most people.

But Charlie, when he spoke at last, said instead, “Hold on. You don’t think this is like, news to me, do you? Do you think you’re breaking me news right now?”

“Yeah, I mean…I—” Mac paused, eyebrows pulling together. “Wait, what?”

“Mac,” he laughed. “I already knew you two had hooked up.”

“ _What_?” Mac skipped back through both of the times they had done something, but both those times had been behind locked doors. Had Charlie been listening from the other side? Weird. “How? What?”

Charlie shook his head. He was still grinning.

“Come on, dude. Are you being serious right now?” said Charlie. “Mac, you were making out with him right in the middle of Paddy’s, like, not even a month ago! You were right in front of the bar. You know people could see you, right? Like, you know that was in the dead center of the room? And that I have eyes and can see you when you do shit right in front of me?”

Mac’s cheeks were turning rosy. His face contorted, angrily, and he spluttered out some protests while Charlie watched him, looking both delicately patient and mildly amused at the same time. Mac was definitely redder than pink now.

“It’s not — I mean — Okay, but—”

Charlie laughed. He shook Mac by the shoulder and stepped back, reaching blindly for the door.

“Great. Good talk, buddy. So, is that a yes to breakfast or what?”

Mac’s cheeks were still flaming. It didn’t seem possible that Charlie had known about this for weeks and hadn’t said anything to either of them, or that he just didn’t _care_. It seemed like too big a deal for him not to care about, but here he was trying to skip past the whole thing and move on to where they could eat.

Mac reluctantly let the subject go. He kept his eyes on his lap, where his fingers were twisting together more forcefully now, when he answered.

“Maybe,” he said after a couple of beats. “Uh, what did you have in mind?”

“Well, I was _going_ to cook something up, but turns out there are still a lot of really scary prison dudes downstairs. So I’m thinking — City Diner? They’re cheap and the food is always good.”

Mac glanced up, smirking at him before he could remember himself.

“What?” he teased. “You don’t feel like making pancakes for my dad and fifty of his closest prison bitches?”

“I love it,” said Charlie. “Just me and a bunch of guys who’d rather eat me than what I’m making.”

Mac laughed, his head tossing back. “I don’t think they’re _all_ cannibals, Charlie.”

“But that’s kind of like saying that some of them _are_ , and I really don’t wanna take my chances with that.”

Charlie shook his head. Mac grinned, kicking lightly out until he made contact with Charlie’s ankle. Charlie danced a couple of steps back out of reach, cursing.

“They don’t eat people,” said Mac. He rolled his eyes. “ _Probably_.”

“I don’t care!” said Charlie. “Those are bad odds, dude.”

“Whatever,” said Mac. “Yes, I’m down for the diner. What time you wanna eat?”

“As soon as you can get ready, man,” said Charlie. “I’m starving. I smoked a joint before you got up and my munchies are going nuts.”

Mac sighed. “Okay, okay. Wake up Sweet Dee. I’m gonna grab a shower before we head out.”

Charlie sniffed. “You’re fine.”

“Trust me, none of us smell fine,” said Mac. “You really should clean up, man, you’re covered in vomit and piss, and it’s like, _really_ gross.”

Charlie waved a hand, laughing a little. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s really gross! Charlie, none of us are letting you in our cars like that. Rinse off or something at least, oh my God.”

“Fine, fine.” Charlie made a shooing motion at him.

Mac gathered up some spare clothes while Charlie tried to convince Dee to stop clawing at him long enough to wake up for real and get dressed. The shower turned off, and a few minutes later Dennis came back in, a towel slung over his waist and his hair damp. Mac’s gaze slid down his bare chest and clung to his hipbones, prominent and sharp. He trailed his eyes back up to flick over the hair on his chest and up to his face. Dennis was smiling at him — mild, but plainly self-satisfied.

“Hey,” said Dennis, glancing at the three of them. “What’s up?”

“We’re going for breakfast,” said Charlie. He slapped Dee on the leg. “Get up, bitch!”

“Shut _up_ ,” Dee groaned.

Charlie flicked her on the arm and backed up. He slipped around Mac and Dennis, slapping at the doorframe.

“I’m grabbing the bathroom,” he said.

“Take a shower!” Mac called after him, reaching out like he meant to grab him, but Charlie was already slipping down the hall and slamming the door shut after him. Mac clenched into a fist and dropped his arm, cursing. “God _damn_ it. That kid isn’t taking a shower, is he?”

“Probably not,” Dennis said lightly. “Hey, Dee, can you beat it? I’m about to get changed.”

“Not while I’m in the room,” she said. Her voice was very hoarse from sleep and probably a hangover to boot, but she quickly slung her legs off the bed and started to stumble her way across the room. She looked very unsteady, still in her sling back pumps, but neither of them moved to help her. Dennis started to unwind his towel, grinning for real now, and Dee gave a little cry and flung her arms up in a wild attempt to cover her eyes. “Goddamn it, Dennis! Wait a second! Wait five goddamn seconds!”

She slammed the door shut behind her when she fled. Still chuckling, Dennis dropped his towel and turned around to bend and start pulling on his old clothes.

“Ugh,” he said. “I hate putting clothes back on after a shower.”

Mac’s gaze trailed down his naked back, over the curve of his ass and down his pale legs. He licked his lips.

“Uh huh,” he agreed.

Dennis shot him a look over his shoulder, a small smirk on his face. In Mac’s opinion, there was really no reason for him to take his time standing up and pulling his underwear up over his hips. None at all.

Dennis turned to face him as he was redoing his jeans. Mac watched Dennis look down at his fingers doing up his buttons, feeling his cheeks growing pink again for entirely different reasons than before.

“Can I borrow a shirt?” Dennis asked, glancing up. “The less clothes I have to wear twice, the better.”

“You could have stopped that first part after ‘the less clothes I have to wear,’” Mac said immediately, although he was already turning around to dig through his drawers for something to give to him.

Dennis laughed softly. Mac found an old red tee that would look good with his jeans, holding it up to show it off, but Dennis only arched an eyebrow.

“I am not,” he said slowly and firmly, “wearing a t-shirt with no sleeves that says ‘Come to Philly for the crack.’”

“Why not?” Mac demanded. “This would look great on you, bro, plus it’s totally funny and original—”

“How is it funny and original?” Dennis demanded. “You have owned that shirt since you were fourteen, Mac, and it’s ugly. Pick anything else.”

“Fine.”

Mac dug up an old blue one that said _Boys Club_ instead, this time with the sleeves still attached, and tossed it at his head. Dennis inspected it for a long few seconds before sighing.

“This is fine, I guess,” he said at last. He tugged it on. After, he bent to grab his dropped towel and snorted, whipping it out to smack him in the chest, and Mac caught it between his hands with a little _oomph_. “You were real subtle earlier, by the way.”

“What did I do?” he demanded, tossing it back.

Dennis rifled the towel through his hair to dry it a little and then threw it onto Mac’s bed.

“‘ _It’s not like we fucked or anything’_!” Dennis said, waving both his hands dramatically. He dropped the act and rolled his eyes. “Who says that?”

Mac scoffed. “Whatever. Charlie knew anyway, dude. He saw you kiss me that first night.”

“ _Me_ kiss _you_?” said Dennis, his voice pitching up high. “That is so not what happened.”

“Of course it is! Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” said Mac. “He saw it, that’s the point.”

“How did he see that? Was he, like, spying on us?”

“Probably,” said Mac, nodding seriously. “He’s got no life so he’s all up in our business all the time.”

“Yeah.” Dennis sniffed. “Still sucks, though.”

“I guess.”

Mac snatched the towel off the bed before its dampness could start to seep through his comforter and make his whole room smell like wet laundry for days. Dennis had pulled the t-shirt a little bit away from his stomach and was re-examining it, reading it upside down.

“I think this was mine, dude,” he said offhandedly.

Mac looked up from hanging the towel off his door. “What?”

“This is mine,” said Dennis. “I think I had this in, like, tenth grade. Did you steal this from me?”

Mac shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Anyway, I’m gonna grab a shower before Charlie’s done getting ready. He always gets so annoying when he’s hungry.”

Dennis was still looking down at the shirt, not really seeming to be listening.

“Yeah…”

Mac dug the baggie of leftover coke from last night out of his discarded jeans, grabbed a fresh set of clothes, and shut his bedroom door behind him. Charlie was still in the bathroom, steam seeping out from under the door, so Mac rapped lightly on his parents’ room instead. No one answered, and he squeaked open the door, peeking his head through. The room was empty; Mac shut the door behind him and retreated to their bathroom to shower there, and to stuff the bag of coke back into its hiding place on the way.

The others were back in Mac’s room when he was done, lounging on his bed and passing around a bowl that he only recognized when he got closer belonged to him. He yelled, reaching out to snatch it back, only to get shoved away by three pairs of hands.

“Back off!” Charlie said. “This is my bud, dude. I just used your piece because I didn’t have one on me.”

“Why would you bring weed to a party but not a bowl?” Mac demanded.

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured you had some. I had some papers until Dee dropped them all in the mud on the way over.”

“That was not my fault!” Dee protested immediately. “I told you that my pockets aren’t very deep—”

They started bickering loudly about whose fault it was that they had stolen Mac’s bowl. Mac, tuning them out, perched himself on his bed nearby where Dennis was sitting at the foot of it with his legs folded underneath him. When Mac looked at him, Dennis shot him a smile.

Mac plucked the bowl out of Dennis’s hand when he was done, even though nobody had asked him to participate. No one really protested either, though. He could feel Dennis’s eyes on him when he lowered his shitty old lighter to the bowl, keeping his own attention on the flame to make sure he didn’t roast too much of the weed at once.

Mac dropped the lighter on the bed. He swallowed twice, inhaling clean air in between hits to add to his filled lungs, and then he breathed it all out in a steady stream. When he glanced to the side, Dennis was grinning.

“This is kicked,” Charlie confirmed a few minutes later, when the weed had been passed back around to him twice and it had been nothing but ash for a few turns already. He nudged the bottom of the lighter through the weed, just to make sure, but evidently didn’t turn up any green because he climbed off the bed after a few seconds, looking preoccupied. He disappeared out of the room; less than a minute later, the toilet flushed out in the hall, and then Charlie reappeared and tossed the bowl to Mac.

“All done,” he said. “Hey, let’s go get breakfast now, yeah?”

Charlie clapped his hands together, rubbing his palms. Mac glanced at Dennis, expecting to share an exasperated sigh, but Dennis was grinning up at Charlie in a loose, lazy way with the normally-whites of his eyes shining bright red.

“Hell yes!” said Dennis, jumping up off the bed. “Let me find my shoes. And my keys.”

Dee rose on a sigh. Mac wasn’t really in the mood to get ready to be seen in public, but he was clearly the only one who felt strongly about it; he rolled his eyes, capitulating to what everyone else wanted. He dug around until he found a random pair of sneakers from the back of his closet and was still pulling them on when the others started getting antsy, complaining about how slow he was going.

“Relax,” he snapped, climbing back to his feet. “Okay. Den, you got your keys?”

“We’re all ready and waiting for you, baby boy,” he said breezily, jangling his keyring in the air. “Let’s go.”

“Shotgun!” Mac called as soon as they slipped out the front door, and everybody else groaned.

“Damn it,” Charlie sighed.

“I was gonna — Alright,” said Dee on a whine.

Dennis glanced at him with a little smile as they climbed in. He batted away Mac’s hand when he tried to reach for the radio dial, insistently popping in one of his CDs and turning up the volume, but at least he let Mac fiddle with the A/C. Every now and then, the backs of their knuckles brushed across the center console, sending pleasant shivers up Mac’s pot-heavy limbs. Mostly they drove along in silence.

The roads weren’t too crowded this early in the morning, and they seemed to hit nearly every green light. The line at the Dunkin’ drive-thru was mercifully short, too. In high school, Dennis used to get pissed off when he was driving high and they got stuck in too much traffic, but by some grace of God the streets were mostly clear. Dennis was still smiling slightly and humming along to his music when they pulled into the diner’s parking lot and he cut the engine.

There was a short wait for a table, which they spent loitering outside so that Dennis and Charlie could split a cigarette. By the time they clamored around a booth together, it was nearing eleven.

“I want a drink,” Charlie said immediately, slapping his hands down on the table.

“Ooh, a drink sounds good,” Dee agreed. She looked at Dennis. “What are we thinking? Mimosas for the table?”

“I could pound some champagne!” Dennis said. He turned to look at Mac. “What do you think? You want something to drink?”

“I could drink,” said Mac.

Dennis clapped him on the back, laughing, and didn’t move his palm from where it was spread between Mac’s shoulder blades when he gestured for service. A pretty young girl came shuffling over after a minute, popping gum and smiling all friendly, putting down some waters and straws and readying her pen on a little notepad. Mac ordered them all drinks for the table, and after a brief fight about IDs because Dee got offended that “Don’t I look like a goddamn adult?” they got approved and the girl said she’d be right back with their drinks.

“Why do you have to make things so difficult?” Dennis asked his sister as soon as the waitress was gone. His hand had fallen, resting lightly against the small of Mac’s back, and Mac was suddenly having a minor problem focusing on the group conversation. “She legally has to ask you for ID. It’s not personal.”

“Although, Dennis,” Mac piped up, “You know, if I didn’t know her, I might think Dee was fifteen…sixteen, tops. Because of all the bad skin.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dee scoffed, tossing pieces of her ripped straw wrapper at him.

“No, she’s been looking old as shit lately,” said Charlie. He pointed a finger very close to her face. “Look at that, she’s got the crows’ feet here, and here—”

Dee shoved his arm away. “Fuck off. Suck a dick, boners.”

Mac snorted. “Okay.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Dee, pouting her lip out at him sarcastically. “You’d like that, huh, Mac?”

“Munch a rug, bitch.”

Dee stuck out her tongue. Mac did the same thing back at her, getting closer and closer to each other over the table until Dennis pulled on his shoulders and pushed him back into his seat. He slouched into the booth with crossed arms.

“We’re all adults,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes.

“Well, you and me are,” said Charlie.

He and Dennis high-fived. Mac and Dee exchanged a look.

“Yeah, right,” Dee scoffed. “Like you two are the most mature?”

Mac made a thick noise agreeing with her, and he dropped his arms. The hand closest to Dennis fell onto his thigh, spreading out under the table and squeezing gently but not insistently. Dennis didn’t even glance at him, and something in Mac’s chest alit. He glowed warmly.

The waitress came back to set down their mimosas, and they all leaned forward eagerly to start sucking them down. Mac dropped his straw from his water into the new glass, and he didn’t move his hand from Dennis’s leg as he chugged a healthy amount and then leaned back with a sigh.

“So…Are you guys ready to order?” asked the waitress.

They all clamored to get theirs in first, and it wound up taking a while for her to quiet them down enough to hear any of it and parse their orders apart. She left with a little jerk of her eyebrows, dotting her pen against her notepad. They all looked at each other.

“What’s her problem?” said Dee, leaning down for more mimosa.

“No idea,” said Charlie, looking equally offended. He took another sip from his drink and shook the glass a little. “I need another one, I’m already halfway done with this already. These things are small as shit.”

“I know, right?” Mac slumped further into the booth, his hand sliding around to cover the inside of Dennis’s knee. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Dennis glancing at him. “How’s everyone’s hangover?”

But whatever headache they might have had from last night’s partying had been offset by smoking this morning, and Mac was still feeling light and pretty good. Drinking on top of it washed away any traces of regret they might have had left.

Other than a brief argument over whether the “no shorts, no shoes, no service” sign outside meant that Charlie could reasonably turn up in his underwear next time, they were laughing for most of the twenty minutes it took the waitress to come back with their food. Mac only took his hand off Dennis’s leg when he had to use it to hold a knife instead.

“What is everyone up to today?” Mac asked, once they had eaten enough that nobody was feeling starved anymore, and they had slowed down somewhat.

Charlie put down his third mimosa. “I was sort of planning on hitching a ride to see what movies are playing.”

“I have a date,” said Dee, twirling her fork around through her food.

“Why?” asked Dennis. “What were you thinking?”

Mac spread his hands. His silverware clattered on the table when he moved suddenly, spraying everybody else in bits of maple syrup. Dennis made a thick, irritated noise, swiping at his jeans with a napkin.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Mac said, ignoring his complaints and leaning forward excitedly. “We do good business, right?”

The others glanced at each other.

“Well — We do,” said Dee, snorting a little. “You barely work for us.”

“Dee, _you_ barely work for us,” said Dennis. “Me and Charlie are the ones who actually own Paddy’s.”

Dee flipped him off.

“Guys, that’s not the point,” said Mac.

“Right,” said Charlie. “Uh, what is your point?”

“The point is that we’re good! Thursday through Sunday, we make a ton of money off everyone who comes in wanting an authentic gay experience! We play the music, we have you two ‘entertaining’ all the customers—”

“Hey!” said Dee, and Dennis slugged him on the shoulder.

Mac just laughed, rubbing at his arm. “Well, it’s true!”

“The air quotes weren’t necessary,” said Dennis crossly.

“Whatever,” said Mac.

“No, I hear you,” said Charlie slowly, raising a placating hand across the table. “You’re saying we should be pulling in cash during the week, right?”

“Exactly!”

“Now, hold on,” said Dennis. “We do some pretty steady business with the college crowd during the week. They don’t have a _ton_ of money, and there’s not a whole lot of them, but it’s nothing we need to worry about.”

“Yeah,” said Dee. “We make more than enough on weekends.”

“I’m just saying, we could be making even more!” said Mac. “What’s the one thing we’re missing?”

“More glitter,” said Charlie, immediately.

“Wet t-shirt contests,” said Dennis.

“Better music,” said Dee.

“Dancers!” Mac said. All three of them just stared at him, with varying levels of confusion on their faces. “Guys, we should be having shirtless beefcakes on a stage or something! Pole-dancing, or at least serving drinks and shit—”

“We’re not hiring more bartenders that we’ll have to split our tips with,” said Dee. “Besides, there’s plenty of people dancing already. Everyone’s always grinding on each other, always.”

“Hold on,” said Dennis. “You’re talking about doing a whole…Coyote Ugly thing, but with dudes?”

“Hot, shirtless dudes!” said Mac. “Yes! Okay, hear me out. We just get a few of them in on our slow nights. Just a couple of guys working the floor. We draw in some more people, and we stay making steady money during the week!”

Dee scoffed around a French fry. “So you want to hire more people, who we have to pay, to work during the days when we make less money than usual?”

“Just Monday through Wednesday!” Mac said earnestly. “We get a couple of guys in to shake their asses or whatever, and then we’re doing steady business every day of the week! It’s like a theme night, but with shirtless dancers.”

“I have to say, Dee, I don’t hate this,” said Dennis.

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “It kind of makes sense. More profits overall.”

“Come on. You guys can’t seriously be considering this?” said Dee. “Dennis, what the hell do you even have to gain from watching guys parade shirtless around the bar?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that half the reason you like being a gay bar is all the attention that you get!” said Dee, laughing in disbelief. “Hot, ripped guys walking around taking their shirts off in the bar? That will just draw attention away from you.”

“I’m hot,” Dennis said, slamming his fist down on the table. Mac rubbed consolingly at his shoulder, nodding along beside him.

“Mac’s gonna find men that look like bodybuilders and you know it.” Dee rolled her eyes. “What do you have to gain from this, Dennis? Obviously I know why Mac wants these guys around—”

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “This is purely a business decision—”

“—but what’s your angle?” Dee plowed on over his protests.

“You do like all those guys hitting on you and giving you tips,” said Charlie, nodding at him. “This could cut into what you’re making.”

“You’re not gay,” Dee agreed, “you’re just really, really vain.”

They both smirked at him. Dee opened her mouth to say something else but Dennis cut her off before she could.

“Well — I am,” Dennis said, blinking at her and Charlie.

“So it — What?”

“I am,” said Dennis. His face was doing something very uncomfortable. “Uh, not really vain.”

Dee stared at him with her brow furrowed.

“Yes you are,” she said.

Dennis sighed. “No, that’s not what I…That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’re saying you’re gay,” Charlie supplied with a shrug.

Dennis coughed. He rubbed at the back of his neck, nodding jerkily. “Uh — Yeah. I guess I’m…yeah.”

He had turned faintly pink, looking around at them all, both vulnerable and vaguely defensive. Mac wondered if he needed another drink. Before he could flag someone down to get him a refill, though, Dee was already sighing dramatically and rolling her eyes at him.

“That’s cool,” said Charlie at last.

“Okay, great,” Dee said. “Whatever.”

They all looked at her for a long moment until Charlie turned back to Dennis.

“Yeah, I gotta say, that’s not very original of you,” he said.

Dennis startled, rearing back and blinking across the table at him. “What?”

Charlie waved his hand vaguely. “Mac’s gay, Dee’s gay, now you’re gay? It’s like, whatever. Who cares at this point, right?”

“Hold on,” said Dennis, eyebrows drawing together. “This is a big deal—”

“It is getting old,” said Dee, while Mac patted him on the thigh with a sympathetic twist to his mouth. “Can we get back to Mac’s whole plan to bang beefcakes in the bar?”

“It’s not a plan to bang beefcakes!” Mac said loudly. He took a deep breath, working on lowering his voice when he pressed on. “And to answer what you were saying, it wouldn’t cut into anyone’s tips. Because these guys aren’t serving anyone drinks, they’re just there to be eye candy. People are still gonna have to pay you and Dennis for beer or whatever. Besides, like I said, it’s only a few days a week.” Dee and Charlie glanced at each other, and Mac sighed. “Look, Dee…What if I promised to hire some hot women for you, too? Then would you be happy with the plan?”

“I can’t believe you’re all ignoring me,” said Dennis. “I come out and you don’t even give a shit?”

“I give a shit,” Mac assured him. “It’s a big deal.”

“Yeah, it’s a big deal,” said Charlie dismissively.

“What do you mean?” Dee asked Mac over the rim of her mimosa, ignoring her brother completely. “Like, hot women taking off their shirts around the bar too?”

“Yeah,” said Mac. “Same basic thing except…I don’t know, what are lesbians into? Big tits? Do you want me to find some half-naked ladies with big tits for you?”

“I don’t think that’s what—” Dennis started.

“I think I want to be in charge of finding the girls, if that’s okay with you,” said Dee. “I don’t really trust you to handle that.”

“Well, women are ugly, Dee! It’s not my fault.”

“Right. Okay,” she said, drawing out the vowels. She perked up and clapped her hands together, looking much more businesslike all of a sudden. “So, you and me hiring some dancers! I’m on board.”

“Great! I’ll make some flyers,” said Mac eagerly.

“I’ll start picking out some music,” said Charlie, “you know, for their auditions. To make sure they can dance good and stuff.”

“Does anyone plan on listening to a word I have to say all morning?” Dennis asked the ceiling.

“Let’s start auditioning people this afternoon,” said Dee. “This is gonna be fun!”

The three of them clinked their glasses together. Dennis, crossing his arms, huffed in annoyance and slumped into his seat.

“I care that you’re gay,” Mac assured him again in an undertone, squeezing his shoulder.

Dennis looked at him for a long moment. Mac moved to rub his back, and Dennis rolled his eyes and went back to his omelet.

 

Auditioning people took three days. They selected their topless men on day two, and Mac promptly ducked out to let everyone else choose between the remaining women.

There was a Real Housewives marathon that he was watching between the commercial breaks of whatever was on NBC, but Mac flipped the channel back to Law & Order when his mom came in, and he left it there. She grunted her thanks as she took the chair next to where Mac was stretched out on the couch. She really liked Law & Order; she put a case of beer down on the coffee table before she sat down, and Mac took that as another thank-you for his consideration. He grabbed one and cracked it open with her.

“Oh, this tastes way better than the shit we’ve been drinking,” said Mac appreciatively. “All we’ve had in the fridge has been trash, like, all month.”

She didn’t look at him. “Your dad likes this one.”

“He’s got good taste,” Mac said earnestly, but she didn’t answer. His phone pinged and he turned to that instead.

 

**│shithead bitch**

_are you coming in today?_

He’d never changed Dennis’s name in his phone since he’d first entered it in there forever ago. In Mac’s defense, even though he’d had a ton of money, Dennis always tried to cheat his way out of paying full price for weed, so he really had been a shithead bitch; he still was one, if he was being honest. Mac scratched at his thigh through his sweats.

 

**│Me**

_idk do i have a shift??_

**│shithead bitch**

_Idk_

**│Me**

_ur my boss ha ha so i guess not_

_why?_

**│shithead bitch**

_just wondering. we’re already packed b/c of dee’s stupid competition_

**│Me**

_idgaf its not my problem_

**│shithead bitch**

_you’re our head of security bitch. it’s ONLY your problem_

**│Me**

_yeah right u just wanna see me_

_gay_

**│shithead bitch**

_youre gay, you dumbfuck_

**│Me**

_ur fault. being around all ur weird homo energy turned me gay. they were right its a disease_

**│shithead bitch**

_fuck you_

**│Me**

_fuck me yourself u punk ass bitch_

**│shithead bitch**

_been there, done that_

_are you already thirsty again???? you’re a slut_

**│Me**

_me?! u begged me to fuck u less than 10 min after u came last time_

**│shithead bitch**

_OK. youre a slut and a tease_

**│Me**

_was texting me a plot to get me to fuck u again? u dont have to work so hard u just have to ask_

 

He wondered if they had any chips in the kitchen. He left his phone in the couch when he went to go raid their cabinets.

“Hey, Mom?” he called into the other room. “Do we have any sour cream and onion chips left?”

“Do you see any on the goddamn shelf?”

“Uh…” Mac pushed some bags aside to peer further into the back. “…No?”

“Then we don’t have any goddamn chips!” she called.

Mac grabbed the Cheetos as a poor substitute and threw himself back onto the couch, popping open the bag. He dug his phone out of the cushions and thumbed through his missed texts.

 

**│shithead bitch**

_it’s not a plot you stupid asshole. we need help at the fucking bar_

_where you work_

_where you begged me for a job_

_i wouldn’t have to plot to get you to have sex with me anyway_

_i already know that u wanna_

_see? told u that you were a tease_

**│Me**

_im not a tease u just cant wait 5 goddamn seconds…and IM the thirsty one?!_

_this is the kind of thing that screams “bend me over ur knee mac pls”_

**│shithead bitch**

_oh rly??? you’re not tough enough_

**│Me**

_bitch u couldnt handle me i am all muscle and i dont hold back_

**│shithead bitch**

_oh ya? what are you thinking of doing_

**│Me**

_about what_

**│shithead bitch**

_to prove it, dumbass_

_like you know_

_what would u be doing if i was there with you_

Oh, shit.

The answer was truthfully that he would probably still be eating Cheetos and watching TV. Maybe he would switch the channel over to some sports game while he and Dennis talked shit about the players and yelled about the score, until eventually they got bored enough to go play some tag football outside. But he had dated enough men before that he knew what he was actually saying.

His mom heaved herself off the couch as he hit reply.

“I’m going to take a nap,” she grumbled out, wandering toward the stairs.

Mac barely heard her; he was already involved in typing up a new message.

 

**│Me**

_i could finally get u back about what i said the other day_

**│shithead bitch**

_which part?_

**│Me**

_all of it dude_

_u could come over later and i could totally make u scream_

**│shithead bitch**

_i’m not that easy. i need to get wooed before i give it up hot stuff_

**│Me**

_oh youll get wood with me trust me_

_bring u up to my room… could put my mouth all over ur body til ur basically begging me to put my hands back on u. u liked it the other day right??_

**│shithead bitch**

_you didn’t rly put your hands on me the other night, Mac. is that a promise?_

**│Me**

_totally. could pin u down on my bed if u want. want me to strip u down there?_

_bet i wouldnt have to put my hands on u for 5 seconds before u were begging me to get going_

**│shithead bitch**

_yea you’d look good kneeling over me huh_

_well… kneeling b/t my legs ;)_

**│Me**

_u gonna do something there pretty boy or just let me pull all the legwork_

**│shithead bitch**

_well yea. if u hold me down then i can’t do shit anyway except take what u wanna give me_

**│Me**

_what do u want me to do??_

_actually u DO run ur mouth too much. but u’d look good if someone finally made u shut the fuck up and u just had to take it_

**│shithead bitch**

_how tf you gonna do that? pussy_

**│Me**

_not gonna be saying that with my dick in ur mouth_

**│shithead bitch**

_gonna fuck my mouth to shut me up?_

**│Me**

_yeah. til u wish u could beg me to turn around and finally put my fingers in u like i said i would. could work u open while u keep sucking my dick. just finger u for hours, bet u’d look pretty as fuck rocking ur hips down on my bed. riding my fingers til ur screaming… bet u sound hot begging for me to shove my cock in u til ur throat’s sore_

 

A gunfight started up on TV. Mac looked up quickly to follow it, but he was a couple of steps behind on the overall plot now. He watched a few of the recurring cops chase a guy up a fire escape and corner him up on the roof, trying to recapture the thread of the original crime, but he wasn’t quite sure how they had gotten from Witness #3 to this guy with the semi-automatic.

He shoved a few more Cheetos in his mouth and went back to his phone. He could pay better attention to the next episode when it began in twenty or so minutes.

 

**│shithead bitch**

_fuck yea you’d look good b/t my legs baby like i said_

_ur hands are big. i think your fingers would feel so thick in me_

_you would fucking love it babe i’d be so good spread out in your bed like that. could just lay there and suck your cock til you think about me every time you jerk off and you’re always hitting me up, begging me to do it again_

**│Me**

_wat makes u think i dont already think abt u when i touch myself?_

**│shithead bitch**

_fuck_

_what kinda things have you been thinking about?_

**│Me**

_mostly all that_

_and some other shit_

_been thinking about if instead of holding u down to my bed u tied me down on urs. or just kept ur hands on my wrists, stopped me from going anywhere. played with me, teased me_

_kissed me slow & started riding me hard, u’d look real fuckin good on top of me, sweaty all over, back archin legs working bet ur thighs wld look pretty. bet ur ass wld look good worked open around me. even prettier if i turned it red first_

**│shithead bitch**

_yea might like that even better_

_w/ you under me, i could watch you fall apart just because of how good i feel on you… that would be something to see_

**│Me**

_you've seen me nut before_

**│shithead bitch**

_yea but not while you were inside me. once you experience how i feel, you’ll be asking me to tie you up every goddamn day of your life. i could wreck you. you’ll be goddamn screaming my name so loud you’ll forget you ever knew any others_

_you think you could handle how long i could stay on you?_

**│Me**

_i’d fuck u up sweetheart. cum inside u & make u wait. get u to sit on my face first so u could cum on my mouth_

_idk if youve done it before but u’d like it so much. u wld make the best sounds with me tonguing ur ass_

 

The front door opened. Mac looked up midway through sending another text, as Luther shut it behind him and snuck a glance around the living room.

“Hey, Dad!” said Mac. He paused with one foot on the bottom stair and turned around slowly to face Mac. “There you are! I’ve been waiting for you.”

Luther sighed. After a few seconds where he stayed frozen, his shoulders slumped and he came a little further into the living room. He didn’t approach very close to where Mac lay on the couch, choosing instead to linger by the TV. He crossed his arms.

“You have, have you?” he said, with a hint of a curl on his upper lip as though he scented something unpleasant. He nodded slightly at Mac’s phone, still trapped in his hands. “What’s that? You talking to your little boyfriend about me or something?”

“What?” said Mac, looking down at his phone too. He quickly let it fall into the couch cushions again. “No! Me and Dennis aren’t, uh…Boyfriends, really. I don’t really know what we are. We guess we aren’t really _anything_ , he’s just my friend—”

“Stop,” said Luther, holding up a hand. Mac stuttered himself into the silence, and Luther dropped his arm with a deep exhale. “Is this what you had to say to me?”

“What? Oh, no!” Mac pushed himself up until he was sitting, looking up eagerly at his dad. He grabbed for the remote and muted the TV so they could talk. “So, check this out: I got you a job!”

Luther, for the first time, dropped his arms. He didn’t look happy, exactly, he never did — but he gave Mac what he would count as an encouraging smile.

“Did you really? That’s great,” said Luther. He leaned against the wall, nodding. “So tell me about the job. What line of work is it in?”

Mac quickly explained the gig he’d set up for him at the bar; just basic security, mostly standing around the front door looking tough and pulling away anyone who raised a fist. Mac would stick to checking everybody’s IDs and doing all the grunt work that he helped Dennis and Charlie with. Luther said nothing, nodding along while Mac talked. Mac spread his hands when he finished, a big grin on his face.

“So, what do you think?” he asked. His eyebrows jumped up his forehead. “Are you in or what?”

Luther said nothing for a long minute, letting Mac just stare at him. Then at last, he said slowly, “Well…It’s a job.”

“Yeah,” said Mac. “It’s great, isn’t it?”

“It’ll be fine. It will satisfy my parole officer, so…It’ll be fine.” Luther glanced sideways, toward where Mac’s mother had disappeared up the stairs earlier, then back to Mac. “Paddy’s…That’s where you work.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Mac said after a beat. “Dad, we’re gonna get to work together! It’ll be awesome, we can spend all day together and reconnect and shit! I know we’ve been missing each other the past few days, because I’ve been at work and you’ve been…doing whatever. But now we can finally hang out! What do you think? It’s good, right?”

Luther looked at him, silent, for a few seconds. Then he said shortly, “I’m going to take a nap,” while Mac was opening his mouth to say something else. Mac fell quiet as he turned around and headed up toward his bedroom. He watched his dad go until he disappeared up on the landing, and then he sighed.

It was going to be good. They would get to work together, and his dad would see how great he was doing and how cool it was getting to know him again, and they would end up friends and his dad would like him and things would be fine.

Mac flopped onto his back again. “Whatever,” he muttered.

He grabbed a handful of the Cheetos that were still sitting next to him and flipped his phone back open as he shoved them in his mouth. Several missed texts from Dennis pinged at the corner his screen.

 

**│shithead bitch**

_good god when did you get so fucking dirty? were you always like this or have i been missing smthng and didn’t even know it?_

_still gonna let you eat my ass though if that’s what you really want. might make you beg for it first, since you seem like you’re already drooling for it. that what you want?? even though you already came inside me you can still ask me real nice for a taste. gonna make you wait before i give it to you though. might make you finger me again while i wait just b/c i know it gets you off doesn’t it?_

_you’re gonna like feeling me fucking myself on top of you_

_what’s the matter? got too real for you, big boy?_

_mac??_

_hey! seriously??!! i was actually building up to smthng man_

_fuck you oh my god_

**│Me**

_sorry dude dad came home_

_i talked to him about the bar_

**│shithead bitch**

_oh shit really??? what did he say_

**│Me**

_hes in bro_

_totally into it, prbly gonna start on monday_

_uh so u wanna go from where we left off or_

**│shithead bitch**

_nah_

_i finished right after you started ignoring me_

_thanks anyway_

**│Me**

_shit. im sorry dude_

**│shithead bitch**

_whatever_

 

Mac flipped his phone shut, still holding it cradled to his chest. Upstairs, his parents’ voices started rising. Faintly, through the ceiling, he could hear them arguing over who was going to get to sleep on the bed and who had to march back downstairs and take the couch.

Mac stared at his phone for almost a full minute, trying to come up with something else to say to Dennis; he felt like he should, even though the conversation was undeniably nearing its end if it hadn’t imploded already. With an irritated grunt, he threw his phone down onto the coffee table instead.

Just in time for the commercial break to end, anyway. Sighing, Mac turned the sound back on the TV, bringing the volume up louder than before to drown out the noises above him. He pulled the bag of Cheetos closer to him. At least he could still finish Law & Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [xo](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/181928464185)


	8. when lightning strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac vs. his dad, a well-meaning lesbian, and his best friends' beds.

Luther didn’t show up to work on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday or Thursday.

By Friday night, the bar was packed nearly wall to wall and they were all fairly busy keeping their heads afloat. Mac could see Dee and Charlie occasionally, across the bar, put their heads together and mutter for a bit before turning to glare at him, but he didn’t have a ton of time to worry about what they might have been saying.

Another young frat guy stepped up to the front of the line, replacing the girl in front of him as she passed to go inside; he pressed close until he was nearly chest-to-chest with Mac, his eyes narrowed and brows pulled together. Mac puffed his chest out too, squaring up.

“Where’s the dudes, bro?”

Mac slumped a little back against the doorframe, crossing his arms but not particularly confrontationally.

“Everywhere,” said Mac, nonplussed, glancing inside at the men practically stacked on top of each other. “Literally everywhere.”

“Not _them_ ,” the kid said. He rolled his eyes. “The shirtless hotties, dude! I heard you guys had some jacked up, hardcore strippers serving drinks and doing body shots off people and shit.”

“Oh. Sorry, bro, they only work Monday through Wednesday.”

“What the hell?”

“Come back next week,” said Mac, holding his hand out and sounding bored. The guy didn’t even have the plan right; the guys they hired were just some regular models that Dennis and Dee found off Craigslist, and they didn’t serve drinks or do body shots — at least until they all got drunk enough that the whole gang started encouraging it, to loud cheers from the patrons. Mac had sucked a tequila lime straight out of the mouth of some beefcake named Rex the other day, and in his opinion, the plan was going well enough without all the incorrect shit that this guy was adding on. “ID?”

But the guy just pressed in closer, mouth twisting.

“Well, what the hell?” he demanded, voice edging into a whine. “Why wouldn’t you have the ripped guys working when everyone’s here?”

“It’s a business decision,” said Mac dismissively. “ID?”

“But—” he started, much louder, but Mac was immediately distracted by Dennis appearing at his side and slipping an arm around Mac’s shoulders. Mac turned instead to grin at him, leaning close.

“Hey,” said Mac. He pressed his fingertips lightly into Dennis’s sides. “What’s up?”

“All good over here?” Dennis asked, eyes fixed on the guy who had fallen back a step and was glaring at them with a pout. The line behind him was starting to get restless, protesting and calling at the front to move on.

“Yeah,” said Mac. “He was just fucking off.”

The guy tilted his chin up at the both of them, looking pissed. Dennis squeezed Mac closer under his arm.

“Bye,” he said pointedly. The guy stomped off, grumbling, and Dennis turned back to him. “Mac, can I talk to you for a quick sec?”

“Um…Sure thing, boss.”

He held one finger up to the complaining crowd still queued by the door and followed Dennis back through the crowded bar. They got separated a few times in the hot press of bodies, but Mac could see his head bobbing along toward the back office every now and then between the other faces in the crowd. He waved Mac in and shut the door behind them, and Mac pulled up short and blinked at the gang, standing in front of him and looking serious.

Dennis edged around him and planted himself between where Charlie and Dee were standing against the wall with various degrees of irritation marked across their expressions. Dee crossed her arms.

“Mac, what the hell?” she said before anyone else could speak up.

“What’s going on here, man?” Charlie agreed. “This is, like, craziness.”

“Woah — Hold on,” said Mac, holding up his hands. “What are you talking about? What are you jumping down my throat for?”

“Your dad, bro!” said Charlie, throwing his hands up. “He was supposed to start on Monday and he’s missed every single shift this week! Look, we’ve been talking—” he gestured between himself, Dee, and Dennis, here, “—and we agreed that if he didn’t show up tonight then we’d have to come talk to you about it. I’m sorry, man. We don’t wanna put you on the spot, but this is ridiculous. We’ve had three fights break out this week already! Somebody broke a beer bottle earlier, and if he didn’t immediately pass out in the booth, I swear he was ready to crack it over his buddy’s head out there.”

“Oh, I saw that,” said Mac, sucking air in sympathetically through his teeth. “That dude looked fucked up, bro.”

“We told his friends to call a taxi,” said Dennis, waving a hand dismissively. “This is about—”

“This is about your piece of shit dad leaving us high and dry!” Dee stomped her foot.

Mac rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I’ll — I’ll admit that this isn’t really what I was picturing either,” he said. “I’m swamped checking IDs already, I can’t be running around breaking up fights and making sure people don’t throw up and die and shit.”

Charlie snorted. “Well, you don’t really—”

Dee smirked. “Yeah, it’s not—”

“Okay, look,” said Mac, gesturing at them all. “The point is, I’m with you. What do you want to do?”

The other three looked at each other. Mac worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Well…” said Dennis. “Look. I don’t think any of us are exactly chomping at the bit to fire your dad, you know?”

“Not ‘cause we like him or anything,” Dee said quickly. “He’s just…you know. Terrifying, and shit.”

“Right,” said Dennis, while beside him Charlie nodded. “So how about this? Why don’t you go ahead and call him up, and ask if he’s planning on swinging by? Maybe there’s a perfectly valid reason that he hasn’t shown up for any of his shifts.”

“Right. Like he got pinched again,” said Charlie, and Mac reached out and slugged him on the arm.

“Shut up!” said Mac, while Dennis rubbed Charlie’s arm consolingly for him. “My dad’s jazzed up to be home with us, okay? There’s no way he would have done anything to put that in jeopardy! We’re really bonding, and him and my mom are deeply in love, of course—”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Dee, “but I’m on board with any plan that doesn’t involve any of _us_ talking to him. So, sure.”

“Works for me,” said Charlie. “What if he doesn’t wanna come down?”

Mac and Dennis shared a look.

“Then he’s out,” said Dennis slowly. Mac pressed his lips together but didn’t speak out in protest. “That’s what we agreed on, right? So…Mac, you wanna make that call?”

Mac sighed. “Yeah, I’m on it.”

He left them in the back office and pushed his way back through the crowd. Several people grabbed at his sleeve as he walked past, calling out angrily or shouting their drink orders at him directly as though that might help. Mac shook off the hands on him and stepped out the front door, walking a little ways down the sidewalk to get away from the angry queue calling for him, and digging around in his pocket for his phone.

He still had his dad’s old number on speed dial, even though he hadn’t called him anywhere except the prison in over a decade. At first, when his dad didn’t pick up, Mac thought that he must have changed his number. He redialed.

And redialed.

The fourth time, the phone didn’t ring for long.

“McDonald.”

“Hey. Dad?”

The line went quiet for a beat. For two. Mac’s heart picked up, a little bit of red flushing into his cheeks. He counted to five and opened his eyes.

“So, you were scheduled to be on shift tonight,” said Mac.

A little sound like a scoff echoed down the line.

“What?” said Luther at last.

“Your shift,” said Mac. “For your job. Where you’re supposed to be working, right now. With me. At Paddy’s?”

He gritted his teeth.

“Right,” said Luther, drawing out the _i_ spectacularly.

Mac pinched his thigh through the sides of his jeans. His fingers curled so hard around the phone that he worried he was about to crush it right into dust.

He asked through his teeth, “So when are you coming in?”

“I’m not following what you’re saying to me,” said Luther. “Come in for what?”

“For the shift! For the goddamn—” Mac paused to take a few deep breaths. He knew better, really, than to yell at his father. He closed his eyes, leaning his back against the outside of the building. Goddamn it, goddamn it. Mac opened his eyes. More measuredly, he said, “Are you going to be here to work within the hour, Dad? We’re swamped up here, and we need our bouncer to settle things down because people are going nuts. It’s Friday.”

Luther was quiet for a large handful of seconds; Mac wondered if he should elaborate, if maybe his dad had been on the inside too long to connect the days of the week with when bars got busy. Mac wondered if he should give him more time to come up with a decision. Mac was this close to spinning around and driving his fist at the wall, but then his dad finally spoke.

“I think that you misunderstood me earlier,” said Luther. Something about the familiar, lulling cadence of his voice was making Mac’s blood boil, even though usually getting him on the phone — for once, on the very rare occasions that it happened — was enough to make his week. “When I said I would take the job, I didn’t mean that I’d be working there.”

Now it just made him think about kicking something.

“Then what the hell does taking the job mean to you?”

“I’m not working at a goddamn gay bar. Did that not occur to you when you asked me? I know what goes on down there, I know exactly what your friends’ little _business_ is really for.” Luther hissed this out through his teeth; Mac recoiled, even with the handful of blocks between them. “But even if that’s _not_ the type of establishment they were running, it wouldn’t matter. I’m not working a menial little day-to-day job as a _bouncer_ , Mac. I have many other, much more important things to do!”

“Then why did you say you’d take it?” he asked. His volume was climbing and he struggled to push it back under control, to little avail. He knew better than this. He knew better.

“I just needed somewhere to _say_ I was working,” Luther said, as though he were explaining very basic math to an exceptionally idiotic child. Two plus two equaled four; sometimes when your dad finally came home after over a decade, he didn’t mean it when he said he wanted to spend time with you. He took a job and didn’t mean it and somehow Mac was still the dumbass for not putting it all together. His face burned, and he pressed his forehead into the brick wall, breathing harder than before. Luther was still talking, by some miracle or maybe the opposite, “—so my parole officer doesn’t come banging down the door. You get me? It’s just on paper.”

Mac gritted his teeth. His cheeks were a little less hot and he wiped the sleeve of his leather jacket across his forehead, feeling for sweat. It wasn’t even that warm outside. If he hadn’t had the jacket, actually, it might even have been a little brisk.

“Mac,” Luther said, tone sharp. “Tell me you’ve got it. You’re not gonna rat me out, _Ronnie_? Are you?”

“Yeah,” Mac said shortly. “I got it.”

He didn’t really have much else to say, waiting on something in return instead — an apology seemed like a very improbable wish, but just an explanation or at least some kind of half-assed lie that it wasn’t Mac’s fault would be good enough for him. “It’s not you, it’s me.” “I love you, son.” Shit like that. He didn’t even have to make it sound believable.

Mac breathed in and the line went dead before he could decide if he was going to say something after all. Mac blinked down at his home screen for a few seconds, feeling like his organs had stopped working briefly, like his body had short-circuited and turned cold. Then all the blood started rushing around at once, and he flipped his phone shut harder than necessary and shoved it into his pocket. He leaned his forehead back against the brick.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered. He slammed his fist against the wall, and it felt good so he did it again; the second time, it started to hurt, like he was scraping off skin for real. Instead of doing it a third time, he kicked hard to relieve the last of the tension, only to end up hopping away holding onto his foot. “Fuck, fuck. Shit.”

He gingerly put his foot down again, shaking out the last of the pains. When he looked up, the line at the door were all watching him, and glaring. Mac sighed, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. He could only get away with staring blankly at the ground for a few seconds avoiding their accusatory and slightly uncomfortable gazes before he had to meet the judgment ahead of him. He didn’t really care what these strangers thought of him, but they did remind him that he should get back inside before the gang started complaining that he was skipping his hours, too.

The bar was jarringly noisy after the comparatively quiet night, all the myriad of sounds confined to a small space, but he didn’t really wince as he headed back inside. Dennis and Dee were both busy with customers down at the end of the bar — service with a _very_ flirty smile — and he couldn’t see Charlie anywhere at all. He grabbed a beer and uncapped it on the edge of the bar before heading back to his post at the front door. He thought there were a lot of unfamiliar faces as he pushed through the crowd, but it was hard to tell if he didn’t remember them because they’d snuck in while he was on break or if he just didn’t care about any of them enough to bother committing them to memory. It didn’t matter. He ignored them all and planted himself back at the entrance without asking any of them for their ID.

After an hour or so, he took another, briefer break to use the bathroom and grab himself another beer. An empty glass had been left on one of the tables nearby, and he snatched it up as he passed out of some half-formed habit, or maybe just because he knew, dimly, that he would be forced into helping clean up later. Either way he slid it over the bar so that Dennis or Dee could grab it at some point and turned to head back to his post, flicking the cap of his beer into the corner of the bar as he turned away.

“Hey!” Dennis snapped, and Mac glanced over his shoulder to see Dennis storming up toward him. “Don’t just throw your shit to the floor, asshole!”

Mac rolled his eyes.

“Dennis—” he started, and stopped. It didn’t matter. He sighed. “Fine. Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever!” said Dennis, his temper still flaring, turning his face red. He always gesticulated so much when he got mad, and now was no different. His hands flew up near Mac’s face, nearly smacking him in the cheek. “Clean it up, Mac. I’m serious.”

“What’s your problem?” Mac snapped. “You never give a shit about if we throw shit on the floor.”

“Show some respect,” said Dennis. The vein in his temple was going off too. “I’m your boss.”

“Don’t start with that shit!” said Mac. “You don’t give a shit about respecting the bar! You’re just pissed off because we’re super busy and it’s making you all tense and shit.”

“No, I’m not.” Dennis crossed his arms. “We’re raking in money. I love it.”

Mac rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you sound really thrilled.”

Dennis opened his mouth, looking ready to contest this point, but before he could Dee slammed a beer down on the bar in front of some girl who looked really offended, loudly. She was gone before the girl could even complain, moving on to mix up the last bit of a margarita to pass to somebody else. Dee looked up at the two of them, her jaw flexing.

“What the hell are you assholes looking at?” she snapped. “And where the hell is your dad, Mac?”

Mac pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed, giving himself a long moment to stare at the floor until he had to meet their reactions.

“He’s not coming,” he said at last.

“What?” said Dennis, glancing back up at him.

“What do you mean he’s not coming?” Dee asked. “Did you get him on the line?”

Mac cringed, putting up his hands.

“I—”

“Mac,” said Charlie, and he spun around to find Charlie storming up past him to wipe up a new spill from a nearby table. “Where’s your dad, huh? Where’s Luther?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Dennis asked, whirling around toward Charlie. “Luther’s skipping out on us!”

“What?” said Charlie, his voice climbing past several new octaves.

Dee shook her head. She grabbed a few glasses down from under the bar and started pouring rum into a drink that she didn’t appear to be counting out shots for.

“I told you that I didn’t want this guy working in the bar,” she said. She tossed back half of one of the glasses in one go, pulling a face when it burned; the others, she nudged across the bar toward Charlie and Dennis. Dennis didn’t look away from Mac long enough to notice.

“Well, the good news, Dee, is that he’s apparently _not_ working in the bar!” said Dennis.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Mac demanded. “You want me to fire him? You want me to fire my fucking dad?”

“Better you than me,” said Charlie, scoffing.

“Yes, obviously we want you to fire him—”

“What else are we supposed to do, Mac? We can’t have him tied to our business if shit goes down, and we can’t have him just showing up out of the blue—”

“Is he gonna show up here? Do you think he would show up? Mac, fire him _now_ —”

“I told you we shouldn’t have hired him in the first place!”

“Yes, you bitch. We know!”

“Okay, okay! Okay,” Mac yelled. “Everyone shut the fuck up.”

They all glared at him, but quieted down. Dee sighed dramatically; Dennis crossed his arms.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” said Mac, a little slower, a little more measured. “I am going to go home. I am going to talk a little sense into my dad. We will both come back here, together, and everyone else is gonna act like everything’s cool. Okay? Okay? No one give him any shit about it.”

The other three glanced at each other. Charlie tilted his head; Dennis arched a brow.

“Fine,” Dennis said at last, holding his hands up in surrender. “But Mac, I swear to God if he gets pissed and comes in to kill us, or whatever—”

“No one’s killing anybody!”

“They had better not, you son of a bitch,” Dee said, pointing at him so her glass of rum and coke sloshed around dangerously. “I swear, if your dad so much as looks at Paddy’s after tonight, I am going to slit your goddamn throat and leave you for trash in the back goddamn alley. Do you understand me?”

Mac rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to admit he was a little scared of Dee; still, Charlie and Dennis were glaring at him too, and he capitulated with a little murmur of, “Okay! Okay.”

He could feel them still watching him as he turned and left the bar, until the door closed and shut out the murmur of voices behind him with it. It still wasn’t particularly cold out, but he pulled his jacket tighter around himself anyway.

The lights in his living room were on, he noticed as he mounted the front steps. Frankly, it was just as likely that his dad was off doing something with his friends as it was that he was sitting at home, watching TV and putting back beers and bickering with Mac’s mother, but he didn’t know where else he would begin to look for him so home was as good a place as any.

The faint sounds of a fight scene on the TV filtered back to him as soon as he pushed open the door. His parents were both sitting in the living room together, watching a movie but Mac wasn’t sure he would call it watching _together_. They were each sitting on a chair across the room from each other, and his mom appeared to be out cold in the one nearest the door whereas Luther was sorting what looked like several hundred dollars’ worth of pills out on the coffee table in front of him. Mac paused in the foyer.

“You’re letting the warm air out,” Luther said mildly, without looking up from his piles.

Mac sighed and nudged the door shut behind him.

“Hey,” he said, since nobody else seemed like they were going to. They didn’t move, or look at him. He shifted his weight between his feet, feeling heat crawl up his spine. “So, uh. Listen, can we talk?”

“We don’t have anything else to talk about.”

Luther divided another few pills away from the larger pile, shunting them off to the side; Mac couldn’t divine a pattern in what he was doing. Luther still didn’t look up, and the vine of warmth wrapped around his spine creeped a little higher, spreading out a little more.

Without thinking it through, Mac spat, “Actually, Dad, we do.”

He swallowed hard as soon as he closed his mouth, regretting it instantly. Luther looked up slowly, his eyebrows already lifting up his forehead, and Mac did his best not to move when he met with the piercing totality of his father’s gaze; the last thing he needed to do was flee before he even really got into the conversation. Or piss his pants. Or anything else of equally embarrassing stature.

Luther lifted his hands off the drugs for the first time. Across the room, his mother stirred; Luther eyed Mac for a long time before he leaned back in his seat, the chair half-reclined, and settled his steepled fingers on his stomach. Mac shuffled a little further into the room so he could feel less like he was shouting this conversation across the room.

“Mom,” he asked without looking at her. “Can you leave us alone for a minute?”

Waking his mom up was, in itself, a dangerous idea. He nudged her in the shoulder, and ended up having to ward off her shouting and smacking blindly in his direction before he convinced her to shuffle up the stairs to go to bed for real. When she was safely gone, he turned back to his dad with a sigh, sweeping back some of his hair.

Luther hadn’t moved while he and his mother fought. He sat there blankly, and he didn’t say anything the whole time, even when Mac met his eye again. They just watched each other for a long time.

“We can’t pay you. If you don’t come in, I mean,” Mc blurted out. He didn’t know why it was the first thing he said; it wasn’t even the first thing that came to mind. It felt like it might be the safest, though.

“I know that,” said Luther.

“So you’re — What? Not even in this for the money?”

“Son, I have a better, faster way to make money, and it takes a lot less work on my end,” said Luther. He spread his hands, gesturing out toward the table. “If you haven’t noticed. I know you’re unobservant, but come on.”

Mac coughed. “Okay. So if you don’t give a shit about the money, what was this job stuff all about, huh? Why did you make me work so hard to find you one?”

Luther squinted a little, for the first time. Actually, he tended to like how intimidating his wide eyes generally came across, so abandoning that advantage was a little scary in its own right.

“I told you already,” he said. For the first time, his voice had an edge to it apart from the usual growl he liked to sport. “I needed something to write down for my P.O.”

“So what?” Mac demanded. “That’s really it? You expect all of us to get watched by the cops, and to lie to the cops for you, and you don’t even give us anything back for it? You don’t work for us, in fact you really screwed us this week—”

“Yes, that’s what I expect!” Luther slammed one fist down on the arm on his chair. “You’re my son! This is what I expect from my own flesh and blood! For you to maybe do something useful for the first time, ever, for once in your goddamn life! Maybe bring the family name some pride for once!”

“I do plenty!” said Mac. “I’ve got tons of pride! Besides, doesn’t the family thing go both ways? You don’t give a shit about doing what I need from you!”

“I’m the reason you were even born!” Luther shouted, leaning forward. “I gave you a roof over your head, I provided for you—”

“You spent half my goddamn life in prison!” Mac yelled. “And I thought, maybe now that you were back you might want to actually spend a little _time with me_!”

As soon as he stopped screaming, chest heaving, trying to breathe in enough to clear his head a little, he grew steadily more aware that he had just made his second stupid move of the night, the first being waking up his mother. His dad had never hit him but in the very back of his mind, he privately wouldn’t put it past him — he had never tested his dad’s limits. Any time he had really pissed him off, he had had the protection of a sheet of glass between them or at least a couple dozen prison guards surrounding them. Now there was nothing. His mom was upstairs, and would wake with significant enough commotion, but even that wouldn’t be a ton of help when it came down to it. Mac knew it.

But Luther wasn’t yelling, not even as Mac’s breathing slowed and he relaxed back against the staircase he was leaning on, beside the TV. Luther tilted his head, considering him.

“Is that what this is about?” Luther asked, and Mac’s stomach dropped. He let his eyes fall to the floor, studying the carpet. Luther’s mouth was twisting up at the corner. “You thought this gig was a great chance for you and I to spend some time together, did you? Just you and me, the perfect fucking father-son bonding! Over pulling apart a bunch of shitfaced kids crawling all over each other to Top 40?”

“No,” Mac said, cheeks reddening darkly. “That’s not what I—”

“You thought that this would be the perfect goddamn place to start up a friendship between us, right? You wanted us to skip off into the sunset as best buddies?”

“No!”

“It’s a goddamn job!” Luther snapped. “I see you almost every fucking day at the house! We talked while I was put away. You’re my fucking son—”

“So that’s the truth, then?” said Mac. He wasn’t shouting anymore — embarrassingly, he heard his voice cracking instead. Luther looked him over coolly. Mac swallowed hard. “Dad? Do you not want to work there because it’s a gay bar? I—I know you’re against…all of that. Or do you not want to work there because I already am?”

Mac couldn’t look at him straight on; even when he asked, he directed the question more in the vicinity of the arm of his chair. He knew the TV was still on but there was a rushing in his ears and he couldn’t hear any of his parents’ movie anymore. Suddenly he wondered if he even wanted to know the answer or not, and if it was too late to take the question back. He could say never mind. He could back away and slam the door, go back to the bar and drink and pretend none of this had ever happened.

Luther leaning forward caught his attention in his periphery, and Mac’s gaze jumped up to his face before he could tell himself to do better. Mac took a deep breath in.

“Let me tell you something,” Luther said at last. He didn’t seem particularly angry — no angrier than usual, anyway. He almost sounded casual. “This isn’t about you and your endless goddamn supply of _feelings_ , Mac. This isn’t about you and me. This isn’t about what you _think_ a father and son relationship should be like, and it isn’t about what our relationship _is_ like. This isn’t about you being…liking…your preferences. You may think that everything is but it’s not. Do you know what this is about?”

Mac swallowed. He thought, or maybe just hoped, that Luther would keep going without actually waiting for Mac to answer. Usually, he would have. Now it just felt like rubbing salt directly into a bleeding open wound, and Mac swallowed compulsively again but his lower lip was still trembling. He had to take a few seconds to breathe just to make sure that he had himself under control.

“No,” he said, gaze flickering to the carpet again, voice coming out on a soft breath.

“This is about me, writing something down for my goddamn P.O. so he’ll finally get off my ass. It’s about me spending my precious fucking freedom on meaningful, lucrative endeavors, while I still have it. Not wasting my nights checking IDs for a bunch of loud, drunk—” he let out a stream of slurs that had Mac flinching back against the wall again, more heat spreading out under his skin, “—with my needy, useless sack of an offspring and his dipshit, worthless friends!”

Luther’s entire face was red and he looked furious now, much more than he had before his outburst. Both of his fists were clenched, resting on either of the armrests, and he glared fiercely. Mac was still curled in on himself, half turned away like it would stop him from hearing his father. But his breathing was picking up second to second, and his heart began to race.

Luther was panting too, but slowing down instead of speeding up. He leaned back into his chair, although his hands were still clenched tightly and his body looked tense when Mac peeked up at him to the side.

Tightly, Luther asked, “Are we done?”

Mac’s throat constricted violently. He straightened, although he still didn’t face his father directly. His brows were drawn so tightly together that his forehead ached dully in the center and his fingers dug hard enough into his thighs that he could feel them pinching through his pants. Luther flicked his gaze over Mac, and he didn’t relax but something that looked almost quietly satisfied slid over his expression.

“You wanna know what I think this is about?” Mac asked. His voice pitched so low that he nearly whispered it.

Luther seemed shocked that he was saying anything except _yes_ in response, but he quickly smoothed his face back out. Almost curiously, he gestured toward Mac for him to continue. Mac’s own hands were shaking.

“I think this is about how much you hate me for not being just like you. When I was a teenager, I could never run drugs right, or I liked the stash too much to end up selling it and I wasted it all on myself. I was always too late getting to school, or coming home too early, and getting the principal called on my ass! Or spending too much time at Dennis’s and it — and you hated me for it! I don’t really know what you hated more. And then you finally came home, and I thought, _yes,_ this is gonna be great! We could hang out and you could get to know me, and maybe I didn’t grow up to be exactly whatever kind of _man_ you wanted me to be, but maybe you could like me anyway. Because I did grow up, and I did it without you!

“So you know what, Dad? I was gonna look past it,” Mac went on, no longer yelling. But he was gulping in air and he didn’t at all feel like he was sucking in enough of it. “I was gonna look past how you didn’t like that we got into different things, and got different jobs! How I never ended up your cellmate in Eastern State, and I never knocked up some chick, and I never got a girlfriend because I turned out gay and you hated it! For some reason, you really fucking hated it. You hated me so fucking much, even though it has _nothing to do with you_!”

“Nothing to do with _me_?” Luther snapped. “It has everything to do with me! You’re dragging our name through the mud, you’re—”

“No, I’m not!” Mac’s voice broke, only a little. He pushed past it. “You — It doesn’t matter either way! I’m still the same fucking kid that you hated just for existing! So I’m _sorry_ that you had me young and resented me so bad for it, I’m _sorry_ that you can’t deal with me being gay. But guess what? _You_ fucked up! Because I would have done anything to get you to like me, you know? I spoke to everyone I could in ’93 trying to get you out! I got you back under this roof when you came home! I threw you a party, I got all your friends here—”

He was ticking the points off on his fingers. Luther swiped a hand through the air like he could push Mac’s arms down from across the room.

“You fucked up that party and the deal that was going down, just like you always—”

“But I _tried_!” said Mac. His voice was wavering again. He swiped the back of his hand across his dry cheek, and found it was shaking. “I tried, and tried, and I — I got you a job!”

“That I didn’t want—”

“I got you a job. A good job. A real job,” Mac said. He felt like he was quivering from the inside out; his hands, his legs, even his blood was shaky. “You could have done something legitimate, and had a chance that _nobody_ has. To reunite with your fucking kid! Who doesn’t want that shit? Who doesn’t want it?”

Mac nearly stomped his foot; it wouldn’t have done anything for his dignity. Luther’s fists were clenched again. His jaw ticked.

“I didn’t ask for it,” he said.

“I know,” Mac said quietly. “I know. But you know what? I did you a pretty big goddamn favor. I did all of this and all I wanted back was — I don’t know, _something_! Some little scrap of — I don’t know!” He clawed helplessly at the sides of his face, wishing he knew how to express the feeling in his chest: like everything was locked up tight in a box, which was floating in a room filling steadily with water, and everything inside it was about to break or burst. “Call me up for lunch! Tell me about your day! Say my fucking name, fuck, _something_!”

Mac swallowed. Luther watched him for a long moment, and Mac stared back with his chest heaving. When his face twitched, Mac thought for a split second that he was going to frown or sigh or maybe just get up and walk away — any of those might have been the better option. But instead he had the gall, at last and miraculously, to pull his mouth up into a smirk. Mac just kept looking at him, not sure what else to do and feeling frozen.

“Come on, Mac. Are you really throwing this big of a fit because I wouldn’t play a goddamn game of catch with you when you were a kid? Didn’t get enough hugs?”

Mac blinked at him, pulled momentarily away from running back over his own explosion. His mind spun to link together what he’d said with his dad’s answer, and he kept coming up blank.

“What? N-No.” He shook his head, jerkily at first and then more frantically. “No! God! I don’t give a fuck about that anymore! Do you really think this is…I tried everything to…I did you a favor. I did you a million favors! Ever since I was a kid, I try, and I try, and — And I don’t fucking care anymore!”

Luther scoffed a little, one eyebrow lifting. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is that supposed to be a threat?”

“No, it — God.”

Mac swiped his hand down his face. Maybe it had happened when his dad got out and saw that he didn’t like who his son had become, or maybe it had happened a very long time ago, back before any of this. Before the armed robbery charges, before the drug dealing, before Mac even started preschool. But somewhere down the line, him and his dad had missed each other. Mac didn’t know if he’d ever known how to get him to hear him, _really_ hear him, or if it was a skill that he’d recently lost. He dragged a trembling hand through his hair.

“I don’t give a shit,” said Mac. He shook his head, just slightly at first, but then harder and harder and he couldn’t stop. “I’m not doing this, I’m not trying anymore! I can’t! I’m happy with the choices I’ve made, and I got here all on my own. Nobody around here gave a shit about me. I mean, I sort of had my friends—”

Luther sat up quickly. “Watch it,” he said.

“Well, it’s true!” said Mac. “I made my own dinner when I came home from school. I cooked, I fed the dog. Half the time I wasn’t even here. I stayed with Dennis or Charlie. Nobody noticed. And their parents didn’t give a fuck either, we just did that shit for each other — cooking and making up beds to sleep in. I moved away all on my own as soon as I graduated.”

“Don’t talk about me and your mother like this!”

“Why not?” Mac snapped. “What, you wanna be father of the goddamn year _now_?”

Luther pushed himself to his feet, fast. Mac fell back a step but otherwise stood his ground; lifting his chin a little, he even felt brave. But Luther’s hands were clenched tightly by his sides and Mac kept his eyes on them.

“I’m your goddamn father!” Luther said. “You’ll show me respect! You’ve been running your mouth for too long, and I won’t let you talk to me like this!”

“Why?” Mac demanded, beating his fist against his thigh once, sharply. “You didn’t give a _shit_ about me, you just care how I talk to you. And I can’t worry about it anymore, I don’t _care_. I’m happy with how things are going for me, and I’m happy being gay, and I don’t — I don’t want to be doing this anymore!”

“Doing what?” Luther asked slowly.

“Any of it!” he said, gesturing wildly around the room.

“You’re going back to New York?”

“I don’t — I don’t know,” he said, stumbling a little as he processed the question. He honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead; he hadn’t really thought this was how this conversation was going to turn out in the first place. He couldn’t work out whether his dad even wanted him to say yes or no to that. His jaw stuck, trying to form an answer, but he pushed the thought aside in the end. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Like hell you will,” Luther snarled. “This is your house, we’re your parents and you’re going to stay here and—”

“You’re not shit!” Mac’s voice shot up, his temper sparking up again in his blood. “You’re not shit! Don’t tell me what to do! You have no fucking right, _no_ fucking right, you’re not shit to me! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

He panted hard for a few seconds when he stumbled to a halt. His heart was slowing down as he trailed off, but as his brain caught up with what he’d said, he started to breathe more rapidly again. His creased forehead gave way to wider eyes, stretching open more and more until they were nearly as big as his dad’s always were. He didn’t want to take his attention off of Luther’s face, knowing as soon as he did that their standoff would break and he would lose the ensuing fight, but he couldn’t help it — his gaze darted down to check on his clenched fists, to make sure they were still by his sides. They twitched as soon as Mac looked at them, and Luther stepped forward, opening his mouth to yell something else.

Before he could get a word out or come any closer, Mac turned around and fled out the front door. He didn’t look back to close it, or check if anyone was coming after him; sweat was already slipping down his palms halfway down the front walk and he quickened his pace into a real run. Only when he was a few blocks away, having slipped down a couple of side alleyways to make sure his dad would have a hard time tailing him, Mac slowed down, panting deep and even. He slumped back against a storefront to settle his head a little bit.

His heart wasn’t racing as badly anymore, but in the absence of blind rage mixed with raw terror, other, emptier feelings started seeping in underneath his skin. As their tendrils creeped closer to his chest, Mac swallowed in a few last gulps of air and set off into a walk. He didn’t really have a direction picked out; he didn’t really feel like going back to work, but now that his house was barred, he _truly_ didn’t have anywhere else to go in the city.

His feet were already taking him in the direction of the bar, anyway. Alcohol, distractingly loud music, and the gang. The bar was the way to go, he decided, already a block closer and nodding jerkily to himself. The bar was familiar and good.

He had to stop a couple of times to press the heels of his hands into his eyes, but mostly he made fast work of the walk, keeping his scowl fixed on the sidewalk and his curled fists shoved deep in his jacket pockets. He kept getting stuck replaying in his head what he had said to his dad, and occasionally he would think up things here and there that he wished he could take back — shit he let spill by accident or just things that he never intended his dad to know in the first place. Some information was too precious to be dropping around somebody who would throw it back in his face the first chance that he got. Although maybe that was a battle that he’d lost the second that he’d first raised his voice.

Mostly, though, Mac spent the walk running through all the additional things he wished he had said when he’d had the chance; he doubted they would be revisiting the subject again anytime soon, a thought he swallowed that left a very, very bitter aftertaste.

There wasn’t a line when Mac got back to the bar, probably because nobody was standing around asking them for their IDs. He sighed and jammed his hands further into his pockets, ducking his head down as he headed back into the bar. No doubt there would be another shitstorm waiting for him when he got inside.

The music inside still played deafeningly loudly, as predicted, but the crowd had significantly thinned. Regardless, Dennis and Dee were still clearly struggling up at the bar. Dennis yelled at Dee about fucking up one of his orders and pissing off a good customer that had just left, even though she was all the way down the bar and nowhere near him. Privately, Mac was on his side that she had managed to screw things up — she was always letting her bad luck and shitty behavior fuck things up for other people, she had always been that way. For her own part, Dee was screaming obscenities right back, although she was mostly just slinging curse words and not actually accusing him of much of anything.

Mac levered himself into a barstool near the middle of the bar, pushing his way between two college kids that glared at him, and struck his knuckles on the bar.

“Can I get a gin and tonic?” he called down the bar.

Dennis was halfway through pouring him the drink when he glanced up at who made the order. Abruptly, he slammed the bottle back down. Mac looked up at him, eyebrows leaping up his forehead, and Dennis gaped at him with one hand levered on his hip.

“Did you really just sit down and order a drink?” Dennis demanded. His voice leapt up into a screechy octave — for a split second, the weight on Mac’s chest eased up and he giggled into his hand. “Are you serious, Mac? We are slammed here! And you’re slacking off and trying to get us to waste service on you?”

“He’s emptyhanded, too,” Dee said, stomping her foot. “Look at him! Where’s your dad, Mac?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Dennis. He glanced around at the crowd over Mac’s shoulder. “Where’s Luther? Is he coming?”

Mac glanced down at his hand, spread out on the table from gesturing for his drink. He swallowed, watching his fingers curl into a fist, his knuckles lying on the countertop.

“Can I have the gin and tonic?” he asked softly, eyes on his hand.

He didn’t look up. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. With a sigh, Mac started to push himself up to his feet, accepting their silence for the self-important judgment that it usually was when they ignored him. Right before his feet hit the floor, a glass appeared under his nose and he looked up to watch Dennis slide it toward him with an unreadable expression. Dennis’s eyes darted across his face, but Mac didn’t know what he was searching for there; he didn’t even know if he found it. He exhaled messily, big and breathy, and dropped his gaze to fumble for the drink instead. He didn’t exactly tip it towards him, but he lifted it a little in acknowledgement before tossing a fair amount back in one gulp.

Mac wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Dennis rolled his eyes and jabbed Mac in the arm with one finger.

“You’re drinking,” he prompted. “Now spill. What’s up with your dad, bro?”

Dee slunk up next to her brother, tossing the rag she used to dry out glasses over her shoulder and setting her elbows on the counter. If she was aiming for the best imperious glare she could muster up, it was working.

“Do you practice that in the mirror?” Mac mumbled.

Dee arched an eyebrow. “Do I what?”

Mac took another long drink and set the nearly-empty glass on the counter. It was to Dennis, not her, that he said, “My dad quit. We should figure out something else.”

“What?” Dennis yelped, and Mac startled, nearly knocking over his gin when his arm jerked. “What do you mean he’s not coming?”

“Mac!” Dee managed to get her voice nearly as high as Dennis’s, and twice as loud. “You useless piece of shit! I _knew_ this would happen, this is why I said—”

“Come on, man. We stuck our neck out for you.”

Mac waved his hand at them. “I know, I know!”

“Mac!” Charlie’s hand slapped down on the countertop next to him, appearing a split second before he did, sliding into view beside him. “You’re back. What’s up? What’s the verdict?”

“What?”

“Your dad!” said Charlie, gesturing senselessly at him. “Is he coming or what?”

Dennis scoffed, shaking his head. “It’s a big fat _no_ , Charlie. Mac boned us. He boned us!”

“Well, what the hell, man?” Charlie asked, looking equally pissed off as he did betrayed as he whirled back around on Mac. “You promised he’d show!”

“It’s not my fault!” Mac said, holding his hands up, trying to get them all to shut up long enough for him to get a word in edgewise without any success at all. “I went over there, right, and I started talking some sense into him. All of a sudden he’s blowing up at me, you know, telling me that he never planned on coming in to help us and he hates — uh, all of you. So, you know. That’s that.”

Mac slapped his palm down on the top of the bar with a little shrug. He drummed his fingers as he took another drink.

“What does that — What do you mean, ‘that’s that’?” Charlie asked, sharing glances with Dennis.

“He can’t just not show up,” Dennis agreed.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you!” Mac rubbed at one of his temples. “Look, I guess it was just some fake-out to make nice with his P.O. or whatever. He never wanted to be here.”

“What a dick,” Charlie said, shaking his head.

“So what, he just expected us to lie for him?” Dennis asked.

“I guess.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Dee said testily. “So now what are we supposed to do when shit like this happens?”

She pointed over his shoulder, and Mac turned around to watch with the others as a woman at one of the tables picked up her half-empty bottle of beer and smashed it over the edge of her seat, screaming at the man she was with. Mac sighed and turned back to the others.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What did you do before my dad was supposed to deal with it?”

“We told them to break it up and take it outside,” said Dennis.

“What if they didn’t?”

“Then we were shit out of luck. Why do you think we wanted to hire security in the first place?”

“Yeah, we’re not equipped to handle shit like that,” said Charlie. “Nobody wants to do it!”

“Why can’t you use your rat bashing stick or something on them?”

“We are not waving around a bloody stick with nails sticking out of it at our customers!” Dennis interjected. “Are you serious?”

“Mac’s the one who messed this up,” said Dee. “He should be the one who has to deal with it!”

“Yeah, it was his job in the first place,” Charlie agreed.

“Wait — But I’m—”

Over his protests, Dennis said, “Okay, great. All in favor of Mac taking over security detail in the bar again?” The others all raised their hands and chorused, “Aye,” while Mac scowled at the counter. “Great, so that’s settled. Mac, go tell that woman not to cave in anybody’s head.”

Mac glared at him. Dennis just set a hand on his hip, arching an eyebrow back at him, and after a minute Mac got up with a heavy sigh and went to go wrench the broken beer bottle from the woman. She kicked him in the shins a lot while he bodily forced her outside, while the guy she had just been threatening helped him. Mac rubbed at one of his calves while he finished the rest of his drink at the bar, glaring at Dennis the whole time.

“Are you happy now?” he demanded. “That bitch bruised me up.”

Dennis shrugged. He topped Mac’s glass off, though, and lingered there for a little while as Mac chugged that round too. Dennis grabbed the empty glass to wash it and reached out with his other hand, his fingers brushing lightly across Mac’s cheek. Mac leaned into the pressure. Dennis swept his thumb against his jaw and patted there softly.

“Get back to work,” he said, pulling his hand away.

He left to go serve another customer before Mac could react; he watched Dennis walk a little ways down the bar before sighing and heaving himself back up to his feet. He felt a little better than before, his blood warming and heart slowing with the booze in his system, when he went to go man the door.

By close, he had broken up two more fights and had still had to lug up more kegs from the basement. He found Charlie down there one of those times, getting mildly high off paint thinner. He offered Mac a huff, and normally he would have taken it — but his head was already fuzzy from liquor and he couldn’t stop thinking about his dad anyway, and he didn’t think getting high would do anything except make him more upset.

After everyone was gone, Dennis and Dee counted out their tips in a booth, sitting across the table from one another with Charlie squished in beside her. Mac was sort of listening to them all talk shop, whatever end-of-the-day business they had to wrap up, but he leaned into Dennis’s side and laid his cheek on his shoulder, his eyes heavy, and he didn’t really care about what they were saying as long as he could stay like this while they talked about it.

“Ha! I almost raked in as much as you, Dennis.” Dee piled all her money back up and stuffed it into her bag cheerfully. “This plan’s starting to work in my favor, _finally_.”

“What plan?” Dennis snorted. He folded his own share of the tips up and pushed them to the side. “The plan for you to whore your way to fame and fortune?”

“The scheme,” said Dee, glancing around at them with wide eyes. “The gay bar scheme.”

“Oh…Right.”

Mac gave up on following the conversation since it didn’t involve him; he closed his eyes, turning a little further into Dennis. Dennis unwedged his arm out from where it was crushed between them and snaked it around Mac’s shoulders instead. Mac shuffled closer, pressing his nose into his collar.

“I don’t care, as long as I keep getting half of the rest of the profits,” said Charlie. “So what’s the plan for the rest of the night? You guys want a beer, or—”

“I’m probably gonna head home,” said Dee. Her arms stretched out over her head, her back cracking audibly. “It’s late, and I have a lunch date tomorrow at noon.”

“Wow, you’re really slutting it up these days,” said Mac, blinking partially awake. “This is like, what? Your fifth date this week?”

“Fourth,” Dee corrected. She broke out into a small, self-satisfied smile. “But I have another one this weekend.”

“Nice.”

He fist-bumped her, even as he rolled his eyes. Dee grinned wider and gathered up the straps of her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. The guys mumbled goodbye to her, and as soon as the door was shut behind her Charlie reached out to snag a five-dollar bill that had fallen, overlooked, onto her seat.

“So what about you guys?” he asked. “Beer?”

“I could have a beer.”

“Me too,” said Mac, raising a lazy hand at him and letting it smack back down on the table.

They ended up staying for three more drinks. It was very late but Dennis and Charlie didn’t seem to feel like getting up just yet, likely because they still had to do cleanup before they could leave. Or at least accept that they were leaving that for their future selves to deal with.

“I should probably get to bed soon,” Dennis sighed eventually. His fingers tapped against the side of his beer bottle, a rhythmless tempo. “I have a thing in the morning to get a new prescription for my reading glasses.”

Mac looked up at him. “You have reading glasses?”

“Yeah, I got them, like, five or so years ago.”

Mac made a little _hmm_ sound, his lower lip jutting thoughtfully. Dennis watched him back until Charlie cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, I should probably go home too. It’s nearly four.”

“Oh,” said Mac. “Um, okay.”

Dennis poked him in the ribs and waist until Mac scooted out of the booth to give him room to get up after him. Charlie pulled on the jacket slung over the back of his seat and glanced at Mac, then paused.

“What?”

Mac bit his lip, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor. Dennis was busy shoving his tips from tonight into his jeans and didn’t look at him. With a sigh, Mac looked at Charlie with his head tilted down, in the way he knew made his eyes look big.

“Can I stay here for a bit?” Mac asked. Quickly, noting the hesitation on his face, he added, “I’ll lock up when I leave. I can even clean a little! I just, you know…I don’t feel like going home right now.”

Dennis slowed buttoning up his coat and glanced at Charlie. Charlie took a long moment to drag his gaze back to Mac’s.

“I don’t know,” Charlie hedged.

“We don’t even really let each other stay in the bar overnight,” said Dennis. “You’re not supposed to sleep in here, and…”

“I wouldn’t sleep in here,” Mac lied. “Promise! I’ll head out as soon as I think my parents are gone for the day.”

Dennis and Charlie shared another long look.

“No,” Charlie sighed at last. He reached out to wind an arm around Mac’s shoulders, leading him away from the table.

“But I swear you won’t even notice I was here. I’ll clean up, I’ll lock up. Whatever you want. It’s cold out there, I don’t wanna stay in the park. I—”

“No,” Charlie said again over him. “You’re not staying here _or_ in the park. You can come crash with me.”

“There are bums out there, I’ve been mugged before and — What?” he said. When he glanced to the side, Charlie was smiling slightly. “I…Really?”

“Sure, man. Of course.” Charlie shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. Dennis nudged Mac with his elbow from his other side, shooting him a warm little smile. “Only for a few days, though. My place isn’t really set up for company, you know? But I — I’ll make an exception for you.”

“I don’t take up that much space!” Mac said, eager. “You’ll barely even notice I’m there.”

“Right.” Charlie rolled his eyes.

“I really…Thanks, man,” Mac said, his voice dipping down much more softly.

“Of course,” Charlie said again, but this time he was smiling. “Hey, you don’t mind sharing the pull-out couch, right?”

 

“Can you pass me a new knife? I dropped mine under the bed.”

“So what? You can still use it. The floor’s clean enough.”

“The floor is _not_ clean, bro. I can see shit caked into the rug from here. What the hell even is that?”

“It’s old meat, leave it alone.”

“Old _meat_?”

“Just leave it, man! Can I have the lighter?”

Mac dug around in the couch cushions behind them, brushing up against a truly incredible amount of liquor bottles that were varying levels of full alongside a sea of crushed potato chip residue, until his fingers closed around the lighter they had used and lost a few hours ago. Charlie murmured his thanks around the blunt in his mouth and sparked it a few times until he found flame. Mac watched him take a hit, chewing another piece of chicken from the paper plate balanced on his lap.

“So you wanna watch a movie tonight?” Mac asked.

“I can’t, man,” said Charlie. He held up one finger to indicate that Mac should wait as he took another long hit off the blunt, then passed it over. “You know my waitress that I’m into?”

Busy inhaling a large cloud of smoke into his lungs, Mac could only nod silently.

“Right,” Charlie continued. “Well, she’s got a date to the museum tonight so I’m gonna go over there and make sure the dude doesn’t get up to anything funny with her.”

Mac arched an eyebrow, letting the smoke billow steadily out of his mouth.

“What? You’re following her around now?” he asked. “I thought you got enough out of it just showing up at her job all the time and shit.”

“No, I’m not following her.” Charlie shook his head emphatically. “That would be totally weird. I’m just making sure she’s safe! I mean, she doesn’t even _know_ this guy. He could be a total creep!”

Mac grinned. “How do you know that she doesn’t know him if you haven’t been following her around?”

“I’m — I don’t — That’s not the point!”

Mac held his hands up, muttering, “Okay, okay,” and brought the blunt back up to his mouth. Charlie dug ferociously into his dinner. Mac’s head already began to feel light when he exhaled the smoke again and passed the blunt back over, freeing up his hands to gulp down some water and get back to eating.

“Just gonna watch a movie alone, then?” Charlie asked.

Mac shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know, maybe. Maybe I’ll ask Dennis if he wants to come over.”

“Oh yeah?” Charlie said, and Mac didn’t like his tone at all. It got all high and suggestive, and Mac glared at him. “You guys getting serious?”

“What? Ew, no.” Mac kicked at his ankle, although the angle was awkward since they were sitting next to each other on the couch. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant it as friends.”

“Whatever,” said Charlie. “Don’t jizz on anything I care about.”

Mac smacked him in the arm. Charlie tugged it away, laughing.

“What?” he said. “It’s true!”

“Shut _up_ , Charlie. It’s not like that!”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Whatever.” Mac rolled his eyes, hard. “You don’t, like, even get it, man. You don’t date guys, there’s a lot of grey area. Me and him are just blurring the lines…It’s not serious.”

“Well…No. I mean like, I do get it,” said Charlie. He passed the blunt back. Mac leaned back, settling more comfortably into the couch and watching Charlie with a detached sort of curiosity. “Like, I’ve been there. I just meant because you and him are always so—”

“What do you mean, you’ve ‘been there’?” Mac asked. “Have you—?”

He surprised himself by laughing, and some of the smoke he had in his mouth billowed out. A coughing fit wound up wracking his body and he bent in two, trying to get himself back under control. Charlie didn’t help except to thrust his glass of water under his nose once he finally sat back up. Mac murmured his thanks around more coughs, and choked some of it down. He wiped his hand roughly across his mouth as he sat back upright.

“Yeah, a few times. Nothing that serious,” said Charlie. “I mean, I’ve got the waitress, and she’s who I’m mostly focusing on.”

“But you have—?”

Mac crudely mimed sex at him with both hands, using the weed still trapped between two of his fingers as the dick; Charlie’s eyes widened for a split second before his brow furrowed and he shook his head swiftly, swiping at Mac with one hand.

“What? Oh, God. _No_.” His mouth twisted up like he had tasted something funny. “Oh, gross, dude. No. I don’t…Uh, I’ve just gone out here and there before. It’s no big deal.”

Mac eyed Charlie thoughtfully, although just in his peripheral. Charlie shoveled more of his dinner into his mouth. Eventually, Mac snorted and passed the blunt back.

“Right,” said Mac. “Nothing serious. I get you.”

“Right.” Charlie puffed a little on the end of the blunt, not inhaling it too deeply. “Just a couple dinners here and there, a little, you know, flirtation or whatever. I had a boyfriend for about a week—”

Mac choked on his bite of chicken. “You _what_?”

“I was twenty-one! I mean, it was nothing like how I feel about the waitress. He actually ended up stealing a bunch of Dennis’s shit and running off. It was pretty cool,” said Charlie, chuckling. “He liked poetry, he wrote me a ton of stuff. I actually turned some of it songs if you wanna hear it—”

“I really don’t,” Mac assured him.

“Whatever. They were really good. He was, like, such a passionate guy.”

God, it was so seriously unfair that Charlie Kelly of all people apparently had a longer and more meaningful gay dating roster than Mac did. He scowled into his next bite of chicken.

“Well anyway,” said Mac, gesturing vaguely with his fork and trying to push down his biting jealousy, “me and Dennis aren’t gonna have sex on your couch if you’re really so worried about that.”

“I wasn’t. This couch has seen worse.”

Mac wrinkled his nose. Charlie finished puffing half-heartedly on the blunt and passed it back over, and for a while they just sat there side by side on his ratty old furniture, eating their half-cooked dinner and smoking weed as the air in the apartment steadily got foggier. They laughed uproariously at the cat and mouse cartoons they had playing on the TV, slumped halfway to lying down and leaning into each other. Eventually, the blunt burned out and Charlie stubbed it out on the ashtray that he had sitting on the end table next to him. Mac stacked their plates and utensils all together in one hand and dumped all of it into the garbage can across the room, even as Charlie called for him to just leave it be on the floor until they had to take the trash out next week. Mac rolled his eyes and collected a few empty bottles sitting nearby on the carpet, shoving them into the bin as well.

“This place is disgusting,” Mac commented lightly.

Charlie made a vague noise. Mac threw himself back down on the couch with his arms spread out across the back of it. He tugged the remote out of Charlie’s loose grip, ignoring his protests as he switched the channel over to a wrestling match that was playing. Charlie’s objections quickly wound down as he leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees, instantly getting into it. Mac watched him for a long moment, snorted, and returned his attention to the competition.

“So, where’d you meet him?” Mac asked.

Charlie’s gaze lingered on the TV for a several seconds before he dragged it away to glance at Mac. He was back watching one of the guys pin the other to the floor almost immediately, though.

“…Huh?”

“The guy,” said Mac, gesturing vaguely with the hand that was still gripping the remote. “Where’d you meet the guy?”

“Oh…Walmart.”

“What?” Mac had been going out to gay bars nearly every single weekend for a decade and Charlie got to meet meaningful relationships in a goddamn superstore?

“I met him at Walmart,” Charlie said, gesturing him for him to be quiet and looking annoyed. “Can you get me a beer?”

“I’m not your slave just because I’m crashing on your couch, Charlie.” Mac’s fingers drummed on his thighs for a second. “You know what, though? I could go for a beer. I’m not doing this because you asked me to, though.”

Charlie made another incomprehensible noise at him. Rolling his eyes, Mac got to his feet and sauntered over to the mini fridge that Charlie had stacked in the corner next to where he usually cooked things on his own radiator. When he sat down beside him again, watching Charlie uncap both bottles with the back of his teeth, they clinked the necks of their beers together before taking two long, in-tune drinks.

 

Thursday found the bar jam-packed with people again. Several customers were still mad that they only had the shirtless dancers around through Wednesday, although Mac honestly didn’t see what yelling at Dennis about it would help when he was just standing behind the bar serving up drinks.

Mac waved another girl past him and inside, and Dee appeared at the end of the bar to greet her and get her order. Mac slumped against the door frame, debating whether or not he could slip into the back room and take a nap without anybody noticing.

He didn’t realize he’d actually closed his eyes until someone swatted him hard on the shoulder, and he found himself staring up at Dennis, who glared back.

“Mac, get your shit together,” he said crossly. The black polish on his fingernails gleamed a little in the light when he set his hand on his hip, scowling. “We’re packed, do you mind?”

“What? Oh,” said Mac, turning and catching the two people over by the pool table yelling at each other. “My bad.”

“Yeah.”

By the time he got finished prying the fighting couple apart, warning them to cool it or he’d have to kick them out, there were three people by the door looking annoyed and peering into the bar like they were thinking about just walking in. Mac hurried back over to get their IDs, and barely refrained from slapping the one who copped an attitude about his customer service. The girl at the end went back to her car to “get” her “forgotten license” and never returned, but it was a welcome distraction from the boy who straight up had a joint tucked behind his ear and did nothing to mask it. Mac considered confiscating it so he could hotbox the back office later, but ultimately just ignored him.

Just as he got finished letting them in, Dennis appeared at his side again. This time when he touched him, it wasn’t to hit him; he set his hand low on Mac’s back, a bite of pressure behind it, and he smiled prettily as he handed Mac a drink.

“Can I trade this out for a martini?” Mac asked, raising an eyebrow and holding the beer up to inspect it.

Dennis laughed. “Sure, next time.”

Mac took a drink and leaned back on the door again, watching Dennis curiously. He didn’t move away to go back to work immediately, instead squeezing the back of Mac’s neck softly. He wasn’t even looking at Mac, casting his attention out to scan the rest of the bar instead.

“What?” Mac asked at last.

Dennis brushed some of the hair off of his forehead for him.

“Nothing,” he said lightly, letting his hand fall.

“No, something’s up,” Mac pressed. “What is it?”

“Why do you think something’s up?”

Dennis laughed again and didn’t answer. Mac sighed, and after a few beats of silence, Dennis said, “I’m thinking about getting new lights in here. What do you think?”

“Strobe lights,” Mac said immediately. “The kind that flash all the different colors of the rainbow because we’re a gay bar.”

“Strobe lights? Are you insane?”

“What’s wrong with strobes?” he demanded.

“You’re going to give half of our clientele a stroke, that’s what! Besides, strobes are so tacky.”

“They are not tacky, what are you talking about? They’re awesome!”

“They are _not_ awesome,” Dennis said, shaking his head. But he was still watching Mac softly. “They are ugly and weird.”

“So is Charlie, but we let him stay in the bar!”

A surprised laugh hiccupped out of him. Mac grinned back at him; he liked watching Dennis laugh. He had a pretty smile and he laughed with his whole body.

“No strobe lights!” Dennis said anyway, frowning with what looked like a tremendous amount of determination. “We’re not a strip club.”

“We’re pretty close,” said Mac.

They both paused to watch one of their Monday through Wednesday dancers stroll past off the clock. Rex wasn’t working but he liked to come in on his off hours anyway for a drink; he said it was easy to get hookups here, and he somehow always did manage to pick up men as well as suss out which women weren’t lesbians and take them home, like he had some sort of sixth sense for people who would potentially sleep with him. He wasn’t shirtless, either, but he still looked damn good in a muscle tee.

“Well, yeah,” Dennis conceded. The both of them finally dragged their gaze away from him at the same time to look back at each other. “But…But still, that’s not the point. We’re not getting strobe lights.”

“Fine. Whatever, if you don’t want to be classy…”

“How in _God’s_ name are strobe lights classy?”

Even as Dennis laughed at him, his hand found its way back to him and raked soothingly through his hair. Mac looked at him warmly for a long time over the rim of his beer.

“Okay, maybe not classy,” Mac conceded at last. “They’re badass.”

“Oh my God. You’re completely delusional.”

He leaned into Mac’s side. When he reached out to steal a sip of his beer, Mac surrendered it without a fight. They watched each other while he drank it and for the first time all week, Mac didn’t feel tense, or annoyed with his dad, or hurt about their fight. He watched Dennis swallow and pass him back the bottle, and he smiled as he did.

“Hey…Den?” he asked eventually. Dennis hummed, leaning further into his side. Mac focused on his nails dragging through the condensation on his beer, but he glanced up at him when he asked earnestly, “Are you cool with everything? I mean, with being gay, and not wanting to be with women anymore…Is that okay with you now and shit?”

Dennis was quiet. He leaned away from him, just a little — he didn’t even entirely stop touching him, but he wasn’t putting his weight on him anymore either. Mac gave him back the beer.

“I’m…It’s weird,” Dennis said at last. He didn’t take a drink but his fingers clenched tightly around the bottle. Mac could see them turning white from the pressure. “It’s just new. And it’s…hard, I guess. You know?”

He shrugged a little bit, eyes studying the floor. Mac pressed closer to him, bit the same pressure from before back into him but the other way around. His fingertips sunk sharp and pointed into the small of Dennis’s back, digging in through his flannel.

“But I’m…okay with it,” Dennis said at last, on a big breath out. Mac nodded encouragingly beside him, breaking out into a little smile when the same one split across Dennis’s face too. He didn’t sound as hesitant, instead a little lighter and almost self-satisfied when he said, “It’s a lot of fun, too. And good. Fun and good.”

Mac laughed, soft and short and in the back of his throat. Dennis turned to look at him for the first time, something in his eyes like he was coming back to earth. The smile faded off his face but he still looked happy.

“The weird feeling will go away,” Mac assured him. Grinning, he leaned in to rest his chin on his shoulder. “The more fun you have.”

Dennis flicked at his forehead with a snort, until Mac leaned away from him again.

“Shut up,” he said, rolling his eyes. Mac laughed. “Go back to work.”

“You came over here,” Mac pointed out.

Dennis mumbled something else, low and rude. Mac pulled insistently on his flannel where it lay settled over his hip until Dennis turned toward him enough that he could lean in and press a warm kiss against his mouth. It was sweet enough, Dennis pushing back into the pressure, until his palm landed lightly on Mac’s cheek. His thumb rubbed against the bone below his eye; Mac pushed his fingers up underneath his flannel to rest against the warm skin of his waist. Their mouths opened up softly against each other, brief and easy, and then they pulled away. Mac scratched at his hip for a second before tugging his hand back too.

Dennis’s eyes flickered over Mac’s face for a moment, warm and considering with them still hovering close to each other. With a little smile tugging on his lips, he jerked away from him and turned away to go back to his post at the bar, taking his beer with him.

Mac waved a few more people through the door, barely even glancing at their birth years. He was distracted by remembering the feeling of Dennis’s lips on his, that insistent, healing pressure that seeped like honey through his veins, and he barely cared about who was coming into the bar.

His phone buzzed against his leg through the pocket of his pants. Mac jolted, pushing himself off the door automatically to grope around for it. His brow furrowed when he saw the caller ID.

“I’m...Hold on,” Mac said to the girl trying to thrust her driver’s license at him, holding up his index finger at her. Dennis looked up at him when he strode past the bar, his forehead creased and lips parted, a question plainly posed there. Mac ignored him, focusing on winding a clear path through the crowd until he made it out to the quiet of the back alley. He flipped his phone open as soon as the door shut behind him.

“…Elle?”

“Hey, Mac.”

His friend’s voice filtered warm and clear through the phone line, recognizable and familiar even though he hadn’t heard it in a month.

“Hey,” he said. His mouth felt a little dry. His brain was buzzing — a rush from hearing from her after so long. “What’s up? How are you doing? How’s Toni?”

“She’s good,” said Elle.

“Yeah? How’s the job?”

“Good,” said Elle. “We’ve been saving up to take a vacation together soon. We just bought new bikes. They actually match, we bought these decals for the side...Hey, stop — Stop laughing.”

Mac hiccupped trying to get it under control, but he also thought that it didn’t really matter because Elle sounded warm and happy as she teased him.

“That’s really gay,” Mac said.

“Me and my wife? Gay together? No way,” she said.

Mac giggled again. He hadn’t heard of it before moving to the city but he really liked when Elle and Toni called each other wife. They had been together for a decade and had been friends for even longer than that, even though they couldn’t really get married; the pet name made his heart jump warmly, like when he did a big shot of tequila or Dennis kissed him on the cheek just for making him laugh.

“Sorry, sorry.”

Elle’s laugh faded. Mac didn’t say anything either, and he fidgeted in the new silence, clearing his throat. He had the dim sense that he should say something else before he regretted leaving the conversation open, but before he could, she spoke first.

“Are you coming home?” Elle asked bluntly.

Mac frowned. That same warning bell that this wasn’t a path he wanted to explore was still hazily chiming in the back of his mind.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just wondering,” she said. He knew that tone, he could practically hear her nose wrinkling out of a mix of concern for him and her opinion that Mac was being a dick. “You’ve been gone forever and we haven’t heard from you since the day you left. And you said that you were only gonna stay there until your dad came home at the end of the month, but it’s been weeks since that was supposed to happen. I’m just wondering what’s going on, Mac. We miss you.”

Mac didn’t say anything for a long moment. He frowned at the ground, kicking at a stray bit of trash that hadn’t quite made it into the dumpster nearby.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she said. “Didn’t your dad get released when they said he was supposed to?”

Mac shrugged a little. “Yeah.”

“So why don’t you know?” she demanded.

“I don’t know!” Mac snapped. “God, what do you want from me?” Her answering silence felt worse than if she yelled back. Mac rubbed at his forehead. “I…Look, things aren’t so bad here. You remember how I’ve been fired from, like, three jobs in the last year alone?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said, her voice tight. “I remember you crying on my living room floor with Toni after drinking through two big bottles of our Jägermeister.”

“Right,” he said quickly. He couldn’t have been more eager to gloss over that memory. “Well, I have a job here, okay? Like, a good one. Well,  I mean, the job itself is kind of mediocre, but I think I’m gonna get to keep it! At least for awhile. And, my…”

He stuttered a little, tripping to a halt.

“Your what, Mac?”

Sometimes he really hated the way she said his name.

“And my — my lease was almost up in Chelsea anyway,” he sighed, into her ice cold silence. “So it’s not like I’m, you know, blowing cash on an apartment that I’m not using.”

He fidgeted a little, his fingers curling in his pocket. He wished he had a pack of cigarettes or something on him, and not just for something to do with his hands.

“What are you saying? You’re moving out? Like, out of New York?”

“Look, dude. I’m broke. But I have a job down here, and I didn’t have one there! Besides, I’ve still got a lot of shit that I have to patch up with my dad, okay? Him coming home didn’t exactly go the way that I pictured it was gonna go. And there’s stuff, there’s new shit coming up with my old friends from high school, and I—”

“You ran into them?” Elle asked in a new voice. Almost surprised, and almost warm, but he could hear beneath all that that she was still frustrated. “That’s great, hon. I know that you weren’t really sure if you wanted to.”

“I’m…Yeah. Yeah,” said Mac. “They weren’t really dicks about what a dick I was about leaving and shit, not like I thought they were gonna be. Well, I guess Dennis was a little, but…that was fair.”

“I’m glad,” she said earnestly.

“Right,” said Mac, shaking his head. “So, yeah, I guess I’m thinking about staying here a little bit longer.”

“How long?” she pressed.

“I don’t know.” Mac ran his hand through his hair. “It could be not that long, you know, if shit doesn’t work out. I’m crashing with my friend Charlie because of…uh, some shit that happened with my parents.”

This was met with silence for one beat. For two.

Elle asked quietly, “But if shit does work out?”

“What do you mean?”

“If it doesn’t go to shit, Mac,” she said. “Are you coming home?”

Mac paused, floundering on this.

The truth was that he really liked Chelsea and the freedom that it afforded him. The truth was that the city was the first place he’d been able to be himself, and he’d had that for years, and it felt good to think about New York because of all those associations with the firsts he’d had. The truth was that Mac liked how it was big and dirty and anonymous and at the center of the world’s attention, and it made him feel good. But even though New York might be better on paper, it wasn’t the same.

Philly had his parents, for one thing. It had the bar, and the gang, and endless drinks and the potential to fix his fucked up relationship with his dad and Dennis. New York was good, but Philly was…Philly. Sometimes two plus two didn’t always equal four in his head the way that it did on paper.

“I actually don’t know,” Mac said at last. He exhaled, his hand dropping from his hair where he’d been pulling at the roots. When he tilted his face up toward the night sky, the breeze was gentle and calming where it brushed across his skin. “It might be awhile.”

He sighed, kicking at the pavement again. Elle didn’t answer for a very long time.

“So you’re really gonna do this again, huh?” she asked in a different, low voice. He thought, for the first time, that he heard a hint of anger buried deep underneath her tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she sighed. Mac scrubbed tiredly at his eyes, thinking about how exhausting women were. He really liked Elle and Toni but sometimes after talking to them, he felt wrung out and empty, and often confused. There was a bite to her tone when she said, “I hope you get what you came there for.”

Mac looked at the closed door that led back into the bar. The thin piece of wood separating him and his dark, peaceful alley with the hustle and boisterous crowd inside. Separating him and the gang.

“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Whatever, dude,” said Elle. “At least say you’ll call us and Tommy soon and let us know how things shake out.”

“Yeah,” he said, blinking rapidly and feeling like he was sinking steadily back through the atmosphere down to earth. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Elle sighed. “Bye, Mac.”

“I — Bye,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if she had already hung up or not.

He shut his phone and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, but he didn’t go back inside just yet. For a few minutes he just stood there, feeling the night air wash over him and waiting for the numb feeling to crawl its way out of his fingers. Eventually he realized that he only couldn’t feel his hands because he’d been standing in the chill for a while, and he turned and headed back inside.

Nobody asked him about his absence when he went back to his post at the door. Dee was yelling that she needed someone to go get more orange juice from the back room because she was too busy, Dennis was steadfastly chatting up one of their regulars, and Charlie was tinkering with something in the back office. Mac cast a fond little smile around the room, taking it all in. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder, and he jolted out of his daydreaming so he could check their ID.

The party went on for a while, not dying down at all through the night like it usually did. By the time Dennis flicked the lights on at two a.m. and called that they were closing, he was met with several groans from disappointed patrons. Nearly everyone was stumblingly drunk as they filtered past Mac in pairs and small groups, either to walk home after they’d gathered all their scattered personal items from their tables or to climb into the backseats of the taxis and sober drivers they’d called. Dennis called him over to the bar by waving a shot at him, and they clinked their tequila together before tossing them back. Dennis licked a stray bit of salt off the tip of his finger, tongue flicking out against his painted nail. Mac dragged his eyes up from Dennis’s mouth to meet his eyes, and Dennis grinned.

“Wanna crash at mine tonight?” he asked.

Mac’s attention trailed back down over the dip of Dennis’s throat and across the slick line of his mouth.

“…Huh?”

“You and Charlie must be sick of each other by now,” he said with a little shrug, a smile still playing on his lips.

His heartbeat began to pick up; Dennis was working the same magic that he always used, making Mac forget about everything else. The rest of the night, everything from before this very moment and all of his plans that he’d had about what he would do as soon as he left the bar, faded until they were dim echoes. The only important thing was Dennis, his mouth still turned up slightly at the corners, tracing his lower lip with his thumbnail and watching Mac steadily.

“Oh….Yeah,” said Mac.

“I don’t mind taking up the burden for a night,” said Dennis.

Mac coughed around a smile. When he glanced up and met his eye again, Dennis grinned flat out.

“Okay,” said Mac. “Yeah, that should be fine.”

“Cool,” said Dennis. “Want another shot before we help lock up?”

“Yeah.”

They each did another shot of tequila, then Mac went to help Charlie clear empties off the tables while Dennis cleaned out their used glasses. They all managed to get the bar cleaned up enough that they could go home without hating themselves in the morning when they had to face a bunch of extra work, and everyone met up out on the sidewalk while Dee locked the front door. Dennis shivered, doing up his flannel to combat the chill.

“Bye, assholes,” Dee murmured sleepily, stuffing the key into her bag.

She waved vaguely over her shoulder as she wandered away toward her car and climbed in, with the others murmuring goodbye back at her. Mac leaned into Dennis’s side when Charlie turned to look at them.

“Okay, let’s go. You good to walk, bro?” he asked Mac.

“Uh—” Mac shared a glance with Dennis. “I’m gonna crash with Dennis tonight. He offered, and, you know—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dennis said quickly. “I just thought, you know, you’ve been putting him up for, like, a week, and I figured—”

“So, yeah, you go on ahead,” said Mac. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Cool?”

Charlie wasn’t quite smiling, glancing between the two of them with his lips parted. His forehead creased a little bit.

“Um. Yeah, sure, whatever. That’s cool,” he said in a bizarrely light voice. His eyes kept darting between them, making Mac shift his weight between his feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“You want a lift home?” Dennis offered, jerking his thumb at his car.

“Nah, I’m good,” said Charlie. He shoved his hands into his sweatshirt. “I’m kind of in the mood to walk.”

“Okay,” said Dennis.

“Okay,” Mac echoed.

Dennis’s hand was already lying low on his back, ushering him toward the Range Rover. Charlie was still smiling slightly, a weird look on his face, when he turned around and set off down the street. They didn’t bother watching him disappear into the night; Mac climbed into the passenger seat and was buckling his seatbelt when Dennis got in beside him. He looked up and Dennis was already lurching across the divider between the seats to kiss him, hands reaching to cradle his face and pull him closer. He didn’t need to — Mac leaned into him as far as he could while buckled in, one hand braced against the door to help push him closer.

“Oh, man,” Mac said, laughing. Dennis’s grin bumped up against his. “Oh, man, dude! Charlie knows we’re going home to do it.” Dennis giggled a little, still trying to kiss him at the same time. “Oh, my God, bro. Charlie’s gonna know the whole time we’re doing it.”

“Yeah,” said Dennis. “Yeah, he totally is.”

Mac tangled his hand in Dennis’s hair and kissed him back harder for a second before releasing him. Dennis still had a huge grin plastered on his face when he twisted the key into the ignition and tugged his seatbelt on. Mac leaned his head back against the seat rest and closed his eyes, smiling blindly at the ceiling as the stereo started pumping out a mix that Mac dimly recognized.

Dennis’s apartment was close, only about a twenty-minute drive from the bar. It was pretty small, too, a simple one bedroom with an adjoining kitchen and bathroom — not that Mac had a ton of time to look around while Dennis locked the door behind him, before Dennis wrapped his arms around his neck and drew him into another long kiss. Mac squeezed his hands around Dennis’s waist, tilting his head to capture his lips again and again.

Without pulling away from him, and between Mac leaning in to kiss him some more, Dennis murmured against his mouth, “Do you want something to drink or anything? I have beer and, uh, I think some Crème de menthe in the fridge.”

“No, no,” Mac said quickly, hands curving over his back. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” Dennis breathed, leaning back into him, and Mac slid their mouths back together hotly.

“Do you?” he asked after a second.

The sound that Dennis let out against his lips was incoherent, but kind of sounded like, “ _Hnmh_?”

“Want to stop and have a beer or something first?” Mac elaborated.

“No, I don’t.”

They staggered over to his bed, although trying to make out and walk at the same time proved more difficult than anticipated. Dennis pulled away long enough to push Mac’s shirt up over his head, and Mac pulled it the rest of the way off while Dennis slipped his palms back down over his chest and abs, watching the path they traced. Mac grinned, cupping the back of Dennis’s neck in one hand as soon as his arms were free and guiding him back into a smooth kiss.

Dennis pushed his tongue into Mac’s mouth, tipping in when Mac clutched him tighter in response. He let Dennis lead their kiss while he crept his fingers up between their chests and started fiddling with the topmost button on his flannel. Dennis relaxed against him, winding his arms loosely around his neck and running his fingers up into his hair. Mac pulled away from his mouth to look down between them, focusing on undoing all his buttons; Dennis pulled him a little closer, tightening a hand in his hair to tug him in, and attached his mouth to just underneath the curve of his jaw.

Dennis murmured, “ _Yeah_ , _yeah_ ,” encouragingly against his skin while Mac finished unbuttoning his flannel and slipped his hands across his chest to push it off his shoulders. Dennis bit down lightly on his jaw and pulled away, shaking his overshirt off his shoulders and quickly rolling his wife beater off too, although not before ducking into press his mouth quickly back to Mac’s between layers.

He curled his fingers into the waist of Mac’s pants and tugged him in, pressing them together. Mac thumbed over Dennis’s cheeks and kissed him again, and again.

He pushed Dennis by the shoulders, forcing him down on the edge of the bed. Dennis quickly undid his jeans and started tugging them off, still sitting, and seeing him work so fast made Mac’s hands fly to his own zipper to start pulling it down too.

Dennis pulled on his bare thighs.

“Come here,” he murmured.

He scooted backwards further onto the mattress. He was still only halfway up to the pillows when Mac crawled over him, spreading his knees out across Dennis’s lap. Dennis ran his hands up into Mac’s hair and dragged him back down to his mouth, and they both fell a little, their lips slipping out of sync, when Dennis flattened out onto his back with Mac’s weight on top of him. Mac ducked back down toward him, not wanting to separate their mouths for too long and aching as soon as they were parted.

“Hey — Hey,” Mac said, as Dennis started to wriggle out from underneath him.

Dennis grinned, slipping out from under him despite his protests. He crawled backwards up the bed to lay half-sitting, propped up on his pillows, and pulled on Mac’s arms until he leaned forward to lay over him and get his lips back on him.

Dennis’s hands slid over Mac’s thighs. He licked softly at his upper lip until Mac’s mouth parted enough for him to press his tongue in against his. His hands swept much more gently up Mac’s thighs, making him shiver when they crept up underneath the boxers he was still wearing and brushed against the sensitive skin of his upper thighs. Dennis smiled, squeezing softly. Mac jerked into the press of his palms, climbing up further into his lap so he could comfortably sit back. Dennis’s thumbs brushed up into the inside of his legs, his head tilting back so Mac could kiss him deeper as he loomed over him.

Dennis’s fingers stayed put, rubbing gently at his sensitive skin, for a very long time. Finally he reached to pull on the waistband of Mac’s boxers instead, tugging at them. Mac sat back enough to push them down, twisting them around his knees, and Dennis pulled him back in roughly. Mac bit down on his lower lip; Dennis wrapped his arms around Mac’s back, nails digging in, and turned them over until Mac was the one lying flat on the bed. Mac let his spread legs fall open further, knees hitting the mattress, and Dennis shimmied down far enough to tug his boxers the rest of the way off for him. He leaned in, licking a flat stripe over Mac’s chest and making him throw his head back instinctively into the pillows.

Dennis chuckled lowly against him, the sound rumbling down into his skin where Dennis’s lips were pressed.

“You’re so sensitive,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. “Have I told you that before?”

Mac curled his fingers through Dennis’s hair, his hips jerking up. His bare cock dragged against Dennis’s waist when he did it, and even though Dennis’s hands gripped at his hips to keep him pushed down into the bed, he darted up to give a kiss that landed just off-center of his mouth.

“Just a million times,” said Mac. It sounded breathy, less annoyed than he’d intended.

“Don’t worry,” Dennis said, sounding absolutely delighted. “I like it.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Mac rolled his eyes. Dennis leaned up to kiss him again, and Mac tilted his chin up to help slide their mouths together at a better angle. One of Dennis’s knees slipped over Mac’s thigh, and he pressed it forward to grind up between his legs. Mac arched up into it, inhaling sharply, and when Dennis covered his mouth again, Mac sucked on his tongue until Dennis collapsed against him, chest to chest, melting into it when he turned the kiss softer. Maybe Mac’s body was sensitive but he knew how to turn Dennis to putty too.

Mac raked his fingers back through Dennis’s hair, falling into an easy rhythm of making out, grinding steadily into his thigh, then kissing some more. When Dennis eventually pulled his mouth away, it was only to press his lips to Mac’s jaw, to his upper chest, down to his ribs. Mac fought not to jerk his hips up again, wanting Dennis to keep at what he was doing instead of stopping to waste time forcing him to stay still again. Dennis smiled against his hipbone, and pressed another kiss right on the top of his thigh. His head tipped back to look up at him, and Mac ran his hand more roughly though his hair again, nearly pulling when his fingers caught on messy curls.

“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Dennis said.

His tongue trailed a fat, lazy path that seemed directionless and had no target — it bumped up against his sack, the underside of his steadily thickening cock, up part of his thigh. Warm and inviting, and Mac tugged uselessly on his hair, trying to pull him between his legs where he really wanted him.

Mac grunted in response when it became clear that he wanted one. Dennis pressed his fingers hard into his hips until Mac gritted out, “I hope it has something to do with sucking my dick, dude.”

Dennis laughed. He pulled on Mac’s waist a little until he slouched even closer to his hovering mouth. Dennis’s tongue flicked out teasingly against the head of his cock, and this time he didn’t stop him when Mac’s hips twitched up toward him. Instead he dipped his head to take in the tip of him in, swirling his tongue around. He sucked a little, and Mac groaned when he pulled away.

“Dennis—”

“I was _thinking_ ,” Dennis said, tracing a slow line down his upper thigh with a wandering finger, drawing aimlessly over his tattoo, “that maybe after I’m done making you beg for it, you could fuck my ‘til I forget my name.”

The heel of his foot, inching further up the back of Dennis’s calves, stuttered and paused. Dennis’s smile grew, and he wrapped Mac’s cock in a loose fist and pulled, almost absentmindedly.

“You wanna — tonight? Yeah? Really?” Mac breathed. He leaned his head back against the pillow and groaned, thrusting shallowly into his fist.

They had only managed it a couple of times. It’s not like they hadn’t done just about everything else, up to and including the other day when Mac went down on him for half an hour and fingered him the entire time until he was screaming, and the one time Dennis’s habitually wandering tongue had made its way further back between his legs than just sucking on his balls. It’s not like they didn’t want to or hadn’t been prepared — Mac had just never been to Dennis’s place, and it was difficult to go all the way when they were reduced to holing up together in various places in the bar, the bathrooms of several clubs and coffee shops around the city, the back of Dennis’s car, Charlie’s couch when he wasn’t home, or on Mac’s bed that was just a few walls away from his parents’ room. They’d managed it a couple of times when Mac’s parents weren’t home but even then they had both spent the whole time more worried that Luther was going to come home in the middle of it and kick their asses.

Now Dennis breathed out, “ _Mhmm_ ,” and ducked down to take Mac’s cock in his mouth again, but this time he didn’t stop to carry on a conversation. Mac stayed still for all of two minutes like Dennis wanted, and then Dennis’s head dipped down far enough for his nose to brush bush. Mac’s hips instinctively jerked up, cock bumping further into Dennis’s mouth. Dennis choked a little when he hit his throat and Mac gasped, fingers already tightening in his hair as he prepared for Dennis to pull away, coughing — but apart from a little noise of protest, Dennis quickly put on a theatrical moan and he bobbed his head faster, his mouth getting messier by the minute. Taking that as a go-ahead, Mac gave into the impulse to thrust hard up into his open mouth, Dennis’s tongue rubbing amazingly over his cock every time he did.

Mac glanced down at him, unscrewing his eyes enough to stop looking at the ceiling. He looked really incredible crouched between his legs, his lips red and stretched around him, Mac’s cock sliding smoothly between them. He was thrusting his own hips shallowly, rubbing off on the mattress while he blew him. His eyes were shut tight, but almost like he could feel Mac’s gaze flicker down to him, he glanced up just in time to catch his eye. Almost showy, Dennis took the opportunity to make sure that the next time he slid his mouth down, he took him all the way into his throat again.

“Dennis — babe — Den—” he gasped.

He didn’t know what he was going to say or do to follow up, though, because Dennis put his hands on Mac’s already-spread knees and pushed them down into the mattress. He had no leverage whatsoever to keep thrusting like this, but Dennis took over any need to — he went faster, forgoing rubbing his own cock on the bed anymore, and Mac’s hand tightened hard in his hair.

Dennis didn’t stop until Mac’s thighs were shaking, trembling furiously where they bracketed his face. Despite what he’d agreed to before, Mac was fully ready to spill down Dennis’s throat, the knot just below his navel coiling extra tight and ready to burst. He was only a minute or so away from cumming hard when Dennis pulled off, letting go of Mac’s knees at the same time so he could finally thrust up hard again just as there was nothing to thrust into. He met the empty air with a plaintive whine, hand scrambling to push across Dennis’s cheek and coax him back down between his legs, but Dennis didn’t budge. He smiled instead, even as he panted and swiped his arm across his mouth and chin to clean himself clumsily.

Mac rocked up and curled a palm behind his neck to tug him in close. They fell back against the pillows again, Dennis’s hands landing hard to either side of his shoulders as Mac pushed his tongue roughly against Dennis’s, ignoring the salty bitterness that he could taste in every inch of his mouth, and hardly caring in any case. Dennis spread his legs out across one of Mac’s thighs again, jerking down against him with a breathless noise that curved into a moan when Mac reached to grab his ass, tugging him closer and into a better angle for him to get relief.

He was so busy watching raptly as he pulled and pushed at Dennis’s waist, helping him rub down on him, and listening to the extremely pretty sounds that he was making as he did so, that it took a long time for Mac to grow dimly aware that he was running his mouth.

“…and you just look so fucking good with your mouth stretched around me, fuck, I wanna fuck you so much, you’re gonna look so good underneath me, shit, I—”

“I know I am, I know I am,” Dennis said. His head was tipped up toward the ceiling, his chest red and heaving, and he looked lost in the pleasure of thrusting against him. “You taste so good, _God_ , you’re so big, I want it—”

Mac tightened his fingers just above his hips and drove his thigh up harder between his legs, forcing him to stop circling his hips long enough for Mac to flip them smoothly over so Dennis lay flat on his back, his head just missing the pillows. He curled his fingers through Mac’s hair and pulled him down to his mouth, licking swiftly inside. Mac lost himself in kissing him for a long moment, tugging on one of his knees to pull his thigh up around his waist. That gave him enough room to start to brush his fingers along the crack of Dennis’s ass.

Dennis fingers pushed back the hair hanging down over Mac’s forehead, although it fell right back into place after. He moaned shallowly into Mac’s mouth when his hand drifted, fingers running down behind his sack, and Mac pulled away from his invitingly red lips to press his own against his neck. He didn’t want to leave marks — it hardly even counted as a kiss, pressing his hot open mouth against Dennis’s throat. Dennis pulled him in closer.

“Where do you keep lube in here?” Mac asked, sounding wrecked and breathless even though he wasn’t the one who had been sucking dick tonight. He squeezed Dennis under his hands, wherever they roamed.

Dennis writhed pleasantly against everywhere Mac touched him, and it took him several moments to gasp out, “Bedside drawer.” Mac had to let go of him to reach over for it, and Dennis took the opportunity to run his hands over Mac’s biceps, down his ribs, up across his thighs until he hit his hips again. He paused to lick his palm and started jerking Mac off loosely again, significantly hindering Mac’s focus on his search, until he successfully fumbled up the bottle and pushed Dennis’s hands away to sit up on top of him between his thighs. Dennis’s spread legs fell open further around him, eyes hungry and fixed on Mac’s hands as he got the cap off and spilled lube all over his fingers.

“How do you wanna do this?” Mac asked. Even though he paused in his movements, he traced his eyes all over Dennis’s naked body stretched out underneath him. “Wanna stay like this?”

Dennis stretched his limbs out and smiling pleasantly.

“I’m comfortable like this,” he said.

“Okay.”

Mac kept one hand on the inside of one of his thighs as he pressed his fingers back between Dennis’s legs. Despite his unaffected facade, Dennis’s eyes fluttered shut and he sighed contentedly as Mac rubbed slickly over his hole for a few seconds before pressing inside him.

Dennis groaned softly. He wrapped his arms around Mac’s neck, though, keeping him trapped there hovering over him, so he didn’t think he wanted him to stop. Dennis’s fingers played with the hairs at the back of his neck, twitching and shaking in time with the little gasps he was making.

Mac was more or less familiar by now with how Dennis liked to be touched like this. He made quick work of thrusting in and stretching him enough that he could press in another finger. Dennis’s face spasmed as he fingered him, his forehead creased and mouth alternatively parting and twisting up like he was deliberately keeping quiet. Mac ducked impulsively to press his lips to Dennis’s. At first he didn’t react, just laying there still, but Mac didn’t move and after a couple of seconds Dennis sighed and parted his lips, opening up against him. The movement of Mac’s fingers restarted inside him, and he kissed him softly as he worked him open enough for a third.

It wasn’t dirty. Dennis moved his mouth gently and easily against Mac’s, exerting the barest pressure. He only paused to moan, hips tilting up toward Mac’s, when his fingers pushed in deeper and curled in a way that he seemed to like. Mac made sure to do it again, and again, smiling a little into his groans and rubbing him pointedly as he loosened up more and more. Dennis’s nails scratched harder against the back of Mac’s neck, sharp and pleasant.

When Mac pulled away, his fingers stilling inside him as he looked down at him, the moonlight slanting in through the window across the room barely touched them on the bed but turned all his sharp angles much softer. The rhythm of Dennis’s breaths was slightly heightened. Mac hadn’t noticed him wearing it before but bits of glitter were sparkling on Dennis’s chest, and had rubbed off onto Mac’s stomach and dotted along his arm.

“Okay…Okay,” Dennis breathed.

Mac’s fingers eased out of him. He planted his hand beside him on the bed, and Dennis pulled him down to him with the grip he still had on his hair.

Dennis’s fingers splayed out between his ribs when they kissed again. He dragged his nails down, scratching at Mac’s abs. Mac’s breathing hiccupped, surprising himself; his hips dipped down, cock bumping up against Dennis’s and dragging further down against his ass. Dennis’s legs spread further around him. It was impossible not to thrust shallowly up into the warmth between his thighs, and Dennis’s hands pushed up through his hair in random, sweeping pulses that tightened periodically and kept him from getting too used to the pattern. His free hand kept scratching at the fleshy part of Mac’s stomach, alternatively light and sharp touches that kept his abs flexing against his hand. It was almost ticklish; he kept jerking his cock up against Dennis’s ass and feeling Dennis arch up against him in response, his dick getting a little messy the more he pushed it against Mac’s body.

Mac could have stayed like that for hours, pushing closer and closer to the edge without ever finding relief while they kissed and grinded together. But Dennis’s hands dropped to Mac’s waist and he half-stilled them, with difficulty. Mac didn’t quite stop circling his hips steadily down into his.

“Come on, okay,” he mumbled, while Mac let his mouth go to press his lips messily against his cheek and down his jaw. “Fuck me, let’s go. I wanna feel you in me—”

Mac groaned into the soft, warm curve of his neck. He scrambled to anchor Dennis’s chin between his fingers and pressed his mouth back to Dennis’s, again and again, hitting it off-center most of the time in his haste. Dennis smiled a little against his lips and flicked his tongue out teasingly, one hand sliding down to grab Mac’s ass hard.

“Come on,” he breathed again.

Mac sat up between his legs. He groped around until he found the discarded bottle of lube twisted up in the sheets with them and dumped more over his hand. Dennis’s wrist bumped against his own when he went to stroke his cock to slick himself up, clumsily reaching like he was trying to help. Mac loosely circled Dennis’s wrist and pressed the intrusive hand down into the bed beside them, dropping his body weight down into Dennis, chest to chest as he kissed him open again. Dennis went pliant beneath him, his body relaxing all at once. Mac’s grip on his arm flexed, and Dennis’s thighs clenched around Mac’s hips.

With his free hand, Mac reached down between them and fumbled a grip around himself. When his focus slipped down to line himself up, his attention to keeping Dennis pinned faltered, but Dennis didn’t push him off. He grabbed blindly at Mac’s back, his nails digging into his shoulder. Mac’s breathing picked up against the side of his cheek.

“Are you ready?” he mumbled, pressing kisses to his jaw at random. Dennis stirred beneath him, moaning quietly and rocking against the head of Mac’s cock brushing against his hole. “Dennis, honey. Are you good?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. A full body shiver wracked through him, and his nails curled into Mac’s shoulder. “Yeah, go on.”

As he pressed slowly, carefully inside of him, Mac pressed his open mouth to Dennis’s shoulder — to his neck, to his collarbone. Dennis fisted a hand tightly in Mac’s hair, keeping him crushed against his body even though he let him continue to pepper him in kisses everywhere he could reach. Mac rocked into him by degrees, going further in on every pass until he had to tuck his face into Dennis’s neck just to stop from fucking into him all at once. Although he initially stayed tense, Dennis unwound underneath him little by little. His lips brushed the side of Mac’s face, not reaching up for anywhere specific but pushing light, barely-there kisses right beside his eye, and against the shell of his ear, and into his hair.

“ _Fuck_.” Dennis’s fingers dug more sharply in Mac’s back when he finally pushed all the way in. Mac panted even harder than Dennis did; he paused, trying to get a grip on himself, feeling anyway like his head was spinning too fast to settle down and focus. Dennis scratched at his shoulder blades. “Mac, Mac. _Mac_.”

Still breathing laboriously, Mac dropped his hand from around Dennis’s wrist and used both to push himself up, getting leverage on the bed. He got to look directly into Dennis’s face the first time that he pulled out and pushed all the way back in — and he was broken open, absolutely beautiful as his head tipped back into the pillows and a low moan wracked his body. His eyes stayed shut tight. Mac did it again, and again, chasing the same perfect reaction and getting it every single time.

Dennis’s knees squeezed around him. He tipped his hips up to meet him as Mac thrust back in, some of the tension leeching out of him as he got used to the rhythm. Mac bent to bite down into the flushed red of his throat, reveling in it when Dennis arched his head back further to give him more room. Mac immediately set to work biting and sucking at his neck, because he let out these beautiful hoarse moans every time it edged into the good kind of painful.

Mac pulled away from his throat as soon as he realized that his focus on marking him up made the rhythm of his thrusts stutter. Dennis’s hands found his hips, drumming against his skin and helping guide him back inside him in a steady, rolling tempo.

The little bitten-off groans Dennis was making settled over him like the light sheen of sweat over his back. Mac brushed his mouth over Dennis’s, pushing more pressure down into it when Dennis wrapped his arms tighter around his neck. Dennis sunk his teeth into Mac’s lower lip on a particularly hard thrust in, choking out something incoherent that Mac swallowed, and with pleasure. Dennis’s tongue slipped into his mouth. Mac licked against it twice, soft and unchallenging, before pushing back pressure into it, rolling his hips hard into him at the same time so Dennis groaned loudly.

It was difficult to kiss him and keep fucking up into him at the same angle; Mac wrapped an arm around his waist, slipping out of him for a second as he hauled them up and pressed closer, pushing Dennis’s back against the headboard and pressing back in between his legs so he was half-propped in his lap with both their thighs spread out wide. Mac thrust back into him hard.

Dennis pressed his forehead to Mac’s, panting. He ducked in to slide their mouths together, his arms draped Mac’s shoulders, his hands twisting together against Mac’s back.

“Fuck, fuck. You’re so good — at this—” Mac breathed against his mouth. “You feel—”

Dennis’s hands slipped down his shoulders, running his nails across Mac’s abs again. He trembled like before, rhythm stuttering; it was a sensitive place. Dennis laughed softly as he pressed his mouth back to Mac’s.

“Yeah?” he said, eyes heavy-lidded but steadfastly looking at him. “I’m what? Go on, big boy, tell me—”

“You are,” Mac said immediately, switching into hard, rolling thrusts into him, “you take it so good, you look so good on me. Shit, you should see yourself, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful…I…can’t believe…I get to see this…To get to look at you…”

Dennis brushed his fingers through Mac’s hair, the nails of his free hand pressing into his spine. Mac pressed his lips to his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, off-center to his chin before seeking out his mouth again. Dennis opened up against him, the tip of his tongue pressing up against Mac’s a few, short times in the space between their mouths and then sinking in behind his teeth again. Mac’s rhythm grew loose and stuttering as they traded longer kisses, grinding up between his legs hard and heavy. Dennis clenched around him and Mac moaned into his open mouth, pulling out slowly and then pushing back in fast.

He did that a few more times, soaking up the hitch in his breathing when he did. Dennis raked sharp nails down his back, grabbing his ass hard the next time Mac pushed into him and keeping him close. For lack of room to thrust, Mac circled his hips instead, his cock dragging inside him in a way that had Dennis’s head tipping back and a low moan drifting up out of him. Mac leaned to take a patch of his throat between his teeth, pulling on it until Dennis keened, his body pushing up as far into Mac as it could.

Dennis didn’t have a lot of room to thrust down on his cock from this position, but he rocked his hips in his lap in a minute grind. His face was still tilted toward the ceiling but Mac didn’t care, because he was in the perfect position to see every twitch and reaction that he made.

Every now and then, Mac bumped up against the place inside him that dragged a loud moan out of Dennis and into the quiet room, but it didn’t happen very often. Mac tried to roll his hips up just right to keep making him give up those pretty noises, but it was difficult to get the angle right with how he was kneeling.

“Hey. Hey,” Dennis breathed, when Mac shifted away a little. He chased after Mac’s mouth, dipping closer, and Mac ducked to acquiesce to a short kiss before he pulled away completely.

Mac slipped out of him as he moved out from between his legs. Dennis’s hands slid down Mac’s arms clumsily, catching on his wrists; he circled them slackly and pulled him close again, catching him in a longer kiss. Mac tugged weakly on the grip around his wrists even as he tipped into him — and without any way to hold himself up anymore, he ended up falling on top of him. Dennis wrapped his arms around his waist without missing a beat, loose and warm as he tipped his chin up to keep their mouths sealed together. Mac pressed his palm against Dennis’s cheek, steadying him as they made out warm and easy. Dennis hauled him in even closer, squeezing gently.

Dennis’s heel brushed against his ass where his legs were still wrapped around him. He coaxed him in, and Mac shuffled up against him until they were pressed together again. Where he leaned over him, it was easy to keep kissing him loose and open. Dennis was still pushing at him, though, and mumbling against his mouth — it took a long couple of seconds for Mac to make out the words, “ _Come on…Come on._ ”

Mac pulled away again. Dennis pressed his lips against Mac’s jaw and neck instead, apparently not very fussy about where he got to put his mouth.

“Come here,” Mac murmured.

He shuffled a few inches back on the mattress. Dennis laid there, throat bitten-red and flushed, his chest heaving. Mac eyed him for a long moment before he split into a smile.

“Gonna make you feel good,” he promised, lowly.

“Yeah?” said Dennis, still lying there panting. He managed to summon a small smirk to crawl across his mouth. “Yeah? You gonna blow my fucking mind, baby boy?”

Mac reached out for his waist. His fingers curled in, pulling on him so Dennis shifted down the bed toward him.

“Yeah,” said Mac. “Yeah, I am.”

He tugged on his sides and Dennis pushed himself up quickly, winding his arms around Mac’s neck to keep himself upright. Mac’s fingers dug into his waist as they just kissed, for a long moment. At last Mac nudged him in the ribs, but Dennis ignored him, pulling away only to lick his way across Mac’s neck. Mac pushed a little harder on his waist.

Dennis cast him a heated look over his shoulder as he turned over onto his hands and knees. Mac kept a hand low on his back, and he hovered there for a long handful of seconds. The longer he stayed behind him, rocking his hips shallowly against the curve of his ass, the more his breathing picked up; Dennis swayed back on him steadily, making little bitten-off moans when the head of Mac’s cock rubbed incessantly against his hole. Finally Mac clenched his fingers into his back and started to push back inside him. Dennis dropped onto his elbows with a low groan, hiding his face in his elbow and rocking forward as Mac pushed all the way back into him.

“This okay?” Mac breathed. He started to thrust into him steadily, but paused when Dennis didn’t answer. “Den?”

“Yeah,” Dennis mumbled, his voice heavily muffled by his arm. “Yeah, Mac, I’m good. Go—”

He reached back and groped clumsily for Mac’s hip, skidding across it as Mac pumped back into him with building steam. Dennis reached up for one of the pillows at the top of the bed and tugged it down to press it underneath his cheek. Mac pulled his hips up a little, changing the angle, and in his next hard thrust in, Dennis moaned loudly and rocked back into Mac’s lap like he was chasing his cock when he pulled halfway out of him.

Mac ran his hands up Dennis’s back, feeling his muscles bunch and move as he fucked him hard enough to rock the bed. Dennis’s fingers curled into the sheets near his head, his other hand reaching back to scratch at the side of Mac’s thigh.

“ _Fuc_ k,” he breathed. “Right there, yeah. That’s so fucking good.”

Mac grunted back in response. He thrust hard and pointedly into him, aiming to drag out more of his groans and not at all disappointed with the results. Dennis was panting hard, and Mac pushed his hand past his spine to tangle up in his hair. He tugged almost viciously. A breathy, beautiful noise pushed out of Dennis’s mouth as his neck arched, his head falling back under Mac’s grip. Mac yanked on his hair again, rocking back into him. Every time Mac started to pull out, aiming to thrust back in hard, Dennis moved back too like he wanted keep close to his lap.

Sinking his knees further apart, Mac shifted further over Dennis’s back, curling their bodies together. He ground deep inside him, driving into him short and fast so he didn’t have to pull out much and peel them apart. Dennis pushed back into him every time, rolling his hips back, meeting him every time as they fucked hard and fast.

“Don’t stop,” he gasped, voice still partially muffled. “ _Mac_. That feels so fucking good. Oh, God, oh God. Mac, Mac, don’t stop—!”

“Not…gonna,” Mac gritted out between his racing breaths. “Fuck.”

Dennis gave a breathless laugh. He arched an eyebrow, and although his eyes slipped shut, he was smiling.

“Not gonna fuck?” he asked. He sounded punch-drunk and breathless and already fucked out. “Why not?”

Mac pulled hard on his hair, making his laugh break off into a little gasp that turned into a low groan when Mac reached around him and traced a finger down his cock. Dennis jerked forward. Mac wrapped his hand around him for real, stripping his cock to the same pace as he was fucking him, even as he slowed his thrusts down to rock back into him hard and heavy. Dennis’s fingers sunk into Mac’s ass when he reached back for him again.

“Den—” He broke off with a low moan, watching Dennis move lithely underneath him.

Dennis covered the hand that Mac had between his legs, urging him to jerk him off faster. Mac leaned to press his lips against Dennis’s bare shoulder, acquiescing to the wordless request. Dennis’s fists curled into the bed beside his head, twisting his face to the other side on the pillow. Little “ _Ah, ah_ ”s escaped his mouth as Mac stroked his cock faster, tightening his grip.

Mac ground up against his prostate again, hard and unrelenting. Dennis gasped out, “Mac, Mac, I’m gonna—”

Mac let him go at once. Dennis gave a very low groan, shoving back on his cock anyway. Mac grabbed for his hips to keep him still as he slipped out of him again, rolling him back down onto his back and immediately pressing back between his legs. He covered his body completely as he pushed back into him in one long stroke, his fingers curling into Dennis’s hair, loosely cradling his head as he bent to kiss him hard. Their lips parted against each other. Dennis moaned into his mouth, wrapping his legs around his hips. Mac started to fuck him so rough and fast that the bed shook again, this time bumping clean into the wall.

Dennis’s thighs were quivering around him. He bit down on Mac’s lip, slipping his tongue over the indentations he made and then past it into his mouth. Mac fumbled to grip the back of one of his thighs; Dennis unhooked his ankles at the small of Mac’s back to let him bend his leg up. Mac slung it over his shoulder instead and then planted his hand down on the mattress right underneath Dennis’s ass, using the new angle to help rock into him harder than before.

Helpless little noises filled the increasingly stuffy air in the apartment, although Mac wasn’t sure if they were Dennis’s or his own or a mix of both. Their mouths sliding and jolting against each other mingled all the sounds together in any case. Dennis’s nails were hard on Mac’s back, jolting along with them, and he clutched harder when Mac’s mouth tracked down his jaw and sucked right over his pulse.

“I’m — I’m—” Dennis gasped out, soft little sighs dripping out right into Mac’s ear. It sounded so sweet, making Mac groan as he ground right up against his sweet spot. Dennis clawed at him. “Mac, I wanna cum, I’m gonna…”

Mac pulled his stomach away from Dennis’s far enough that Dennis could push a hand down between them to wrap around his cock. Mac licked a long stripe up the side of his neck.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Yeah, Den, you sound so good, you’re gonna look so good. Come on,” he grunted, grinding up into him hard, “fuck yeah, you’re so fucking hot.”

Dennis fisted his free hand into the hair at the back of Mac’s head and pulled him down to his mouth roughly. With a low groan from the back of his throat, Mac opened up into the bruising kiss. Dennis fucked his own fist rapidly, shoving down on Mac’s cock on the backstroke, with Mac helpless to do anything but stumble to match his new, faster rhythm. With a shallow couple of gasps, he crushed his lips to Mac’s and came with a loud groan into the quiet room, still jerking his hips up into his hand and pushing against Mac’s tense stomach.

Mac fucked him steadily through it. He slowed down a little when Dennis relaxed against the bed, panting hard and pulling his dirty hand out from between them. Mac ducked to press his mouth blindly against Dennis’s cheeks, beneath both his eyes, to his chin and just off-center of his lips; none of them were really kisses, just brushes of his mouth against Dennis’s warm, flushed skin. It was addictive. The hand on Mac’s back clutched sporadically at him, little twinges of his nails digging in, while the other lay limp on the mattress beside them.

Dennis’s breathing evened out by degrees. Mac wasn’t exactly fucking him anymore but he couldn’t help the little twitches of his hips, pumping into and out of the heat of him by fractions.

“Come on, baby boy,” Dennis said at last on a big exhale. He wiped his hand off perfunctorily on the sheets, but when he swept his hand through Mac’s hair it was definitely still a little dirty. Mac didn’t care, ducking his face into the hollow of his throat with a low sound and rolling his cock back into him deeper. Dennis gripped at his back with both hands, his nails digging in harder and with more purpose than before. “Yeah, come on, I wanna watch you get off inside me. Bet you’re gonna look fucking incomparable. Fuck me, you can keep going, keep fucking me…Like that.”

Mac’s teeth closed over skin just to the side of his Adam’s apple, pulling hard enough to make Dennis gasp again and stop talking as he twitched against him. Mac quickly picked up a fast, uneven rhythm with his hips. He only let go of the skin in his teeth when it was darkly bruised, and Dennis moaned shallowly again when he let it go.

He was still murmuring encouragements into his hair, blind and babbling and mostly nonsense. Mac only heard about half of it, too focused on how his ass felt clenching around his cock, his body rocking back into it the best that he could from his pinned position on the bed. Mac pumped up into him, hard and fast and entirely without finesse as he just tried to get off as quickly as possible. Dennis leaned up to get his mouth at Mac’s neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses that sometimes turned bruising into it while Mac edged closer and closer to release.

Mac’s breathing got shallower. Dennis pulled his mouth away and fell back against the pillow beneath him so that Mac could tuck his face into the hot, swampy hollow of his throat, and he fisted his hands into Mac’s hair as Mac rutted up into him with sharp grunts.

Mac’s whole body was trembling. Dennis reached down to grab hard at his ass. Mac came hard inside him on his next sharp thrust in, and Dennis pet his hair and mumbled more praise against his cheek as he kept fucking him relentlessly through his orgasm. Dennis was still whispering, “Good boy, that’s it…Fuck, you’re so fucking sexy,” when Mac’s hips finally stilled and he came back down to earth.

He held himself up over Dennis for another few seconds, panting hard and waiting for his head to clear. His arms quavered. Dennis smiled lazily up at him, his hands roaming back across Mac’s chest and abs; his fingers tracked down through the mess of glitter and jizz and both of their sweat, and he tilted his chin up to plant a soft kiss beneath Mac’s jaw where he could reach.

With a quiet groan, Mac moved just enough to pull out and then let all of his weight collapse directly onto Dennis. Dennis chuckled against the shell of his ear. He traced aimless patterns across the slicked skin of Mac’s back for a long minute, not complaining like he’d expected him to, while Mac lay there panting. He nuzzled into Dennis’s shoulder eventually, squeezing him gently under his hands and mumbling about not wanting to move, and Dennis finally tugged indolently on his hair.

“Can you get off me, bro?” he said conversationally. “You’re being a real dick just crushing me like this after nutting up in me.”

“You asked,” Mac grumbled into his neck.

Dennis pulled on his hair again. “I can’t breathe, asshole.”

“You’re so full of shit.” Mac moved one of his arms and flopped it right back onto the bed. “Too tired, can’t move.”

Dennis snorted and shoved Mac hard. Mac rolled off him with a surprised sound and flopped onto his back, immediately kicking Dennis in the ankle in retaliation. Dennis pushed him back and they wrestled, briefly, on the pillows until Dennis pinned him down with a very triumphant huff. Dennis pushed him down into the mattress and Mac poked him in the ribs until Dennis collapsed next to him.

“Dick,” Dennis muttered.

Mac rolled over and threaded his fingers through Dennis’s rats’ nest of curls, tugging him in close. Dennis ghosted a laugh against his mouth right before leaning into the kiss.

They laid there, lips moving quietly against each other and their hands roaming, for a long time. Mac wasn’t sure how long, losing track of the time somewhere between tuning into the slick sound of their tongues playing together in the otherwise quiet apartment and Dennis curling toward him with a pleasant sound and a hand on his thigh. Finally they pulled back, Dennis ducking in to press two more soft kisses to his mouth before rolling over to the edge of the bed and sitting up. Mac wriggled under the sheets that had been kicked near his feet and reached out to trace a lazy circle across Dennis’s bare back while he stretched.

“I’m gonna clean up,” Dennis said, slapping lightly at Mac’s thigh.

Mac reached clumsily for him, his fist closing on nothing, when Dennis got up and drifted away into the bathroom. He turned onto his back again and stared up at the dark ceiling, drumming his fingers against his stomach and not really thinking about anything. His mind was actually very quiet until Dennis came back five or so minutes later, complaining about his bad water heater and rolling his eyes. Dennis held a beer out and Mac scooted up to lean his back against the headboard as he reached out to grab it. Dennis clamored onto the bed, crossing his legs and tipping his head back to take a drink. They didn’t speak for a little while, Mac watching Dennis examining his own fingernails.

“I’m pissed off at you about this,” Dennis said eventually.

Mac raised his eyebrows. “Huh?”

Dennis flicked his gaze up to Mac’s face. He brandished his hand, wiggling his fingers in the dark.

“You fucked up all the nail polish I had on,” Dennis said. A crease formed between his brows as he pulled his hand back to examine his cuticles again. “The tips all chipped off. Now I’m gonna have to go get them done again before tomorrow.”

Mac laughed. “How the fuck is that my fault?”

Dennis flicked him in the knee.

“If you were shittier at railing me I wouldn’t have scratched you up so bad,” he said matter-of-factly. “Then I wouldn’t be looking at spending another twenty bucks on a goddamn manicure.”

“There’s no way it’s that expensive.”

“It ties my whole look together,” Dennis said with a long-suffering sigh. “You don’t _get_ it.”

“I’m the one who should get to bitch,” said Mac, twisting his torso around and thumbing at the scrapes on his back. He couldn’t exactly get the right angle to see them but he could still feel the wounds under the insistent search of his fingers. “Jesus Christ, dude, did you draw blood?”

“You’re fine,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. He slapped at the scratches on Mac’s back, making him hiss and swat at Dennis’s wandering hands.

“Uh-huh. I’ll make sure to suck more next time,” said Mac. Dennis raised an eyebrow, and he elaborated, “You know, so I’m not totally awesome when I’m pounding you and I can actually wear a shirt in the morning.”

Dennis barely glanced at him, but something in Mac’s expression must have caught his eye because he froze, attention locked on him all of a sudden. Mac looked back for a few beats, his lips pressed together and fighting to keep his expression neutral. He couldn’t keep it contained for long, though; the corners of his mouth tugged up into a smirk. Dennis scowled immediately. His hands dropped back into his lap.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said. “Don’t fucking flatter yourself.”

“I didn’t. You did,” said Mac, glowing happily. “Aw, look at you — you’re totally soft! You’re soft for me, Den.”

Dennis rolled his eyes again, but his cheeks were dusted a rosy hue that was deep enough that Mac could see it, even under the dim, unilluminating light of the moon through the distant window. Dennis wasn’t looking at him anymore, gaze tracking around his own apartment while he drank his beer like he was cataloguing somewhere entirely new. Mac watched him out of the corner of his eye, a small smile playing on his lips even though he just sat there in silence and drank his beer too, electing to lay off teasing him anymore.

When his bottles was done, Dennis set it aside on the table next to the bed and then reached to pluck Mac’s from his fingers almost before he finished swallowing the last pull. His protest got lodged somewhere in the middle of his throat when Dennis loomed close to him, hips swinging as he crawled onto all fours, and wearing a pretty little self-satisfied smirk. Mac choked his complaints down instead.

“Wanna go again?” Dennis asked lowly. Both of his hands stayed firmly flat on the mattress, but they were close enough to Mac’s thighs to raise up goosebumps anyway. “Promise I can show you how hard I really am.”

Mac swallowed. Whatever he’d wanted to say got stuck as well, and he found he couldn’t speak; he nodded swiftly instead. Dennis was laughing when he threaded his hand into Mac’s hair and tugged him down into a hot kiss. They fell into the pillows again, and they were already kicking the blankets back down to the end of the bed together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> booty shorts that say "i have a permit: i can do what i want" on the ass [x](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/182649334730)


	9. kiss me on the mouth but please don’t bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, and I like that,” said Mac. “I just think it’s time to go home.”
> 
> They didn’t look at each other, and Charlie didn’t ask the obvious question: How long? Mac didn’t offer up an explanation but he thought he would do something about finding something more permanent soon, too. He spent the remaining days at Charlie’s place circling ads in the newspaper for apartments for rent, any lead that he might want to follow up with later.
> 
> Mac moved back into his old childhood bedroom exactly three weeks after moving out of it.

Mac grabbed more of the trash scattered all over the floor and shoved it into the trash bag in his other hand.

“Charlie!” he snapped. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Charlie glanced back from where he was grilling on the radiator. Frankly, the smell coming from his corner of the room was completely repugnant. Mac would have asked him to postpone lunch until he could find an excuse to get himself out of the apartment for a few hours, but he couldn’t even definitively say that _lunch_ was the right word for what was going on over there. Simmering bread, cheese, and whatever meats hadn’t rotted in the fridge together on the heater didn’t exactly add up to a square meal in Mac’s mind, and growing up he had occasionally had to make do with a bottle of beer and one big sleeve of saltines for lunch.

“What?” said Charlie.

“That’s disgusting, dude,” said Mac, pinching his nose in a fruitless attempt to block out the smell. “What the hell are you making?”

“It’s called a Grilled Charlie, bro.” Charlie waved the spatula around, and whatever was on the end of it made the wallpaper sizzle when it landed around the room. Mac stared in horror at the burn mark that began to grow outward from the spot on the wall. “You should really try it sometime, they’re delicious. Do you want one now? I think I have enough cheese to—”

“I am _not_ eating whatever the fuck you’re experimenting on, Charlie,” he said, shoving another soiled newspaper into his trash bag. “That can’t be edible.”

“Oh, it’s edible,” Charlie assured him. “It’s regular sandwich stuff, Mac! It’s just bread, and — I think this is ham—”

“That is _disgusting_.”

Mac wrinkled his nose. He could still smell it; whatever Charlie thought the radiator was doing toward cooking up his lunch, it seemed to just be making everything more rancid. He watched in a kind of morbid fascination as Charlie flipped all the ingredients over together with a spatula. Bits of sandwich “meat” flaked off and fell between the slats of the radiator, and Charlie cursed, poking for the fallen scraps with a finger before pulling it back and hissing as he got burned. Mac rolled his eyes and went back to picking up trash.

“You’re an animal, bro,” said Mac.

“Me?” Charlie demanded. “You wanna talk about me?”

“Yeah, I do! What are you even doing? You’re gonna end up hospitalized, _again_.”

“What am I doing? What are _you_ doing?” Charlie shouted, gesturing wildly at him so that more of whatever was on the spatula flecked the wall, causing more burn marks to fester.

“I am picking up trash off your disgusting-ass floor!” Mac said. “So that I can take one step without worrying about getting stuck with a goddam hyperdermic needle!”

“There’s no needles in here, not since I kicked out Squirrelly Jim,” said Charlie, waving his hand dismissively with his forehead all bunched up.

“Who the hell is Squirrelly Jim!?”

“He’s this homeless guy I had living in my kitchen for a while, it’s no big deal.”

“It is absolutely a big deal! You can’t be letting homeless guys into your apartment to sleep on your couch with you!”

“Why not?” Charlie said, spinning around with one hand on his hip and pinning Mac with a glare so ferocious that he momentarily stopped in his tracks. “I let _you_ stay here with me.”

“I — That’s—” Mac spluttered, but he soon trailed off. Charlie lit up, jabbing a finger at him and then spinning around to go back to making lunch.

“Ha,” he snorted softly, prodding at his sandwich with the spatula. “I stumped you.”

“Well, it doesn’t even matter!” Mac said, fury building as he picked up more steam. “You’re the one lying around in garbage for weeks on end until you remember to throw it down the chute! And you’re eating food that I’m pretty sure you saw in the trash!”

“You eat food you’ve seen in the trash too, and you _know_ it.”

“I do not!”

“Yes, you do!” said Charlie. He flipped his sandwich off the radiator and onto a plate, switching off the heating as well. Mac fanned himself with one hand, grateful that he could at least put a shirt back on soon. “I saw you take those dumplings and rice out of that can near the movie theater—”

“Ahh! Ah!” Mac shrieked — anything to cut him off while he could gather his thoughts. He stabbed a finger at him. “You — I — That was perfectly good Chinese food that somebody just tossed out without opening half of the boxes! That doesn’t count and you know it!”

“You eat trash too!” Charlie shrieked.

“Take that back!” Mac yelled over him. “Take that back!”

They both trailed off, panting. They were still glaring at each other, but Mac broke away first, scowling. He bent to shove more garbage into the bag in his hand. Charlie took a big, vicious bite out of the sandwich he was holding and Mac was just glad that it wasn’t any part of his own body; Charlie had been known to take out chunks when he started getting bitey. Across the room, Charlie panted, the food evidently still too hot. Mac shot him little glowers as he moved around the apartment, cleaning up as best as he could around him because Charlie saw fit to sprawl out unmoving on the couch with his lunch and turn on HGTV. He didn’t glance at Mac once.

Mac leaned the half-full bag of garbage up against the wall near the front door and threw himself down next to him on the couch. Charlie offered him a bite of his sandwich, but Mac declined again and reached for the bag of barbecue Lays he’d left half-eaten next to the couch last night.

“Bro, I really can’t do this anymore,” Mac sighed.

Charlie’s gaze darted to him for half a second. “Do what?”

“This!” he said, waving his hand around the apartment.

“Woah, woah…Is this about cleaning up?” Charlie asked. “’Cause I may not keep a clean floor but I do plenty of the other stuff around here, so that’s really not fair. I pull my weight, it’s just not — And this is my apartment anyway, I shouldn’t feel forced to—”

“It’s not that.” Mac scratched at his thigh idly. He didn’t look up at him but he could feel Charlie watching him for more than a couple of seconds this time. “I just think that maybe it’s time I go back to my mom’s.”

“Why?” he asked blankly.

“I’ve been staying on your couch for, like, two weeks—”

“Sixteen days.”

“What?”

“It’s been sixteen days,” Charlie elaborated, “since you moved in here.”

“Really? Well…right, that’s my whole point,” said Mac. “I don’t think I should be crashing on your couch for any more time than that. It feels, like…I don’t know. Maybe a little bit pathetic.”

“Well, it’s definitely pathetic,” Charlie agreed, “but who cares about that, bro? We do lots of things that people probably think are pathetic. At least we get to hang out all the time.”

“Yeah, and I like that,” Mac assured him. “I just think it’s time to go home.”

They didn’t look at each other, and Charlie didn’t ask the obvious question: How long? Mac didn’t offer up an explanation but he thought he would do something about finding something more permanent soon, too. Instead the conversation faded out and after a couple of minutes they were both too caught up in yelling about the audacity of the woman on TV passing up granite counters just because the fireplace didn’t meet her exact size specifications to argue about anything else.

 

Mac moved back into his old childhood bedroom exactly three weeks after moving out of it. He spent the remaining days at Charlie’s place circling ads in the newspaper for apartments for rent, any lead that he might want to follow up with later. He even went to a listing that weekend but the news that the last tenants had been killed in a meth deal gone bad had him quickly going home to polish off some beers with Charlie instead of bothering to look at anywhere else in person that day.

His mother was the only one home when Mac came back in, his small backpack of stuff slung over his shoulder.

“Hey, Mom,” said Mac.

He hesitated on the foot of the stairs, waiting to see if she would say anything back — after a long moment, just as he started to head up anyway, she grunted from the couch.

“Hey, kid.”

Mac stopped, blinking at her for a long few seconds. She didn’t look away from the TV again and Mac headed up to his room after all — he wasn’t exactly smiling but the tight knot that had preoccupied his chest all morning loosened, just a little bit.

His improved mood didn’t last long. The hours between going back to his parents’ and heading into work were plagued with nerves about what would happen when his dad got home, whenever that might be. He spent his time simultaneously unpacking his bag from Charlie’s and gathering together anything he wanted to take with him to a new apartment when he found one, piling it all haphazardly into a corner; his room was a mess when he stopped to go get a snack, and the untidiness of it all made him itch under the skin. He cast an anxious glance around before shutting the door and heading downstairs, where the very first person he saw was his dad already standing in the kitchen. They edged around each other while Mac fixed himself something to eat, the air tense and silent.

Work was busy. One guy got so drunk that he actually threw a punch at Mac when he went to tell him to clean up his act, and even though Mac ducked he still got grazed. His eye socket ached dully, even after he finished cleaning up in the bathroom and pressed a cold beer against the forming bruise.

Mac lingered for so long out on the sidewalk after they closed up that Dee and Charlie finally got bored and went home; and still he stood there, lighting up a cigarette as an excuse to loiter, until Dennis slung his arm around his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

“Wanna come over and watch a movie?” Dennis asked. Mac couldn’t nod fast enough.

He sprawled out on Dennis’s couch when they got there, nursing a beer from the fridge and smoking another cigarette. Dennis trailed his hands over his expansive movie collection for a long minute before turning around.

“Romcom or action movie?” he asked.

Mac pulled a face. “Why do you own that many romcoms?”

“Shut up,” Dennis said, his cheeks darkening.

He grabbed a movie and popped it in, avoiding Mac’s eye. Mac chuckled a little and got more comfortable on the couch, raising his arm up enough for Dennis to lean into him when he collapsed down next to him. Dennis reached to tug the ashtray on the coffee table closer, but not in time to catch the burnt end of Mac’s cigarette before it fell. Mac stomped out the rug sizzling between his feet while Dennis pinched him in the inside of his thigh until he yelped.

“Mac!” he complained. “Goddamn it, I was doing _such_ a good job making sure I got my security deposit back.”

“Calm down, bitch! Just move the couch a little, nobody will ever notice.”

“Fuck you,” Dennis said with a scowl.

He reached across him to grab for the cigarette in his fingers, and Mac released it without a fight. He slumped further into the couch, pulling Dennis down with him. Dennis sighed, almost unnoticeably except that they were lying together and it ghosted over his skin. Mac brushed a hand through his hair, then tightened it on his shoulders; Dennis’s fingers crept back over Mac’s thigh, and this time they squeezed and stayed put.

Reservoir Dogs was a pretty good movie, entertaining even though Mac had seen it a thousand times. They shared the cigarette, and Dennis hogged most of it, until it burned down to the filter and he stubbed it out on the ashtray. Mac finished his third beer. The loose, liquid feeling in his extremities had already started to seep into his blood. Dennis was warm next to him, laughing at something in the movie and poking fun at the camerawork. Mac thought about how close they were, and how easy it would be to turn his head and press his lips to Dennis’s neck. He wondered — idly, his thumb slipping off Dennis’s shoulder and just beginning to rub into his bare bicep beneath his t-shirt sleeve — whether Dennis would just sit there sighing happily and watching TV while Mac pressed his mouth all over his flushed skin or if he’d give up on Reservoir Dogs to make out for real.

He was still thinking distractedly about putting this plan into action, beer and the suckerpunch to his face earlier and the very late hour making him slower than usual to act, when Dennis turned toward him first. Before Mac could face him and bring their mouths together like he intended, Dennis broke the silence.

“So what’s up with your living situation, dude?” he asked, and Mac’s thumb stopped making slow circles on his arm. “Charlie said you moved back in with your mom this morning?”

Mac tugged his arm back from around Dennis’s shoulders, crossing them against his chest instead. Dennis sighed, pulling on his elbow, but Mac didn’t budge.

“Yeah?” he said shortly. “So what?”

“Nothing,” said Dennis, releasing him to hold up his hands. “Jesus, it was just a question. No need to get so fucking defensive.”

Mac really wasn’t in the mood to fight with Dennis on top of everything, even though it looked from here like that was probably where the conversation was headed. Before Mac could snap back at him, though, Dennis curled his body closer and nestled his head on Mac’s shoulder. His hand pressed insistently between Mac’s arm and his chest until he forced enough space between them to wedge through, and he clasped his hands around Mac’s bicep, getting comfortable against him. Mac let his hands drop back to his lap.

“Whatever,” Mac muttered.

Dennis glared up at him, but Mac wasn’t looking and only caught the edges of his ire out of the corner of his eye. He slid further into the couch until he was really closer to lying down than sitting up, and his palm slid over Dennis’s knee. Dennis gave up looking pissed to turn back to the movie. His cheek nudged Mac’s shoulder every time he moved.

Dennis didn’t seem angry at him anymore by the time he pulled Mac down to him on his sheets in the early hours, and they spent twenty long minutes kissing and sliding their hands everywhere they could reach before they got too tired to go on and fell asleep where they were already lying.

 

“Your music is garbage,” said Mac.

“Shut up,” said Dennis. “This is the mix that I always clean my apartment to.”

“Okay? So what? So you always clean to garbage. It’s all that weird glam rock femme shit, it’s not good,” said Mac with a little shrug. He held up the dirty knife he was using to smear condiments all over two slices of bread. “Do you want mayo on your sandwich?”

Dennis glanced up from pulling clean sheets over his bed, where he was struggling fantastically with the corners.

“Uh — No,” he said, cursing as the sheets slipped from his fingers and snapped halfway across the mattress. “Um, is there any of that tomato pesto left that I used in the pasta the other night?”

Mac ducked down to check the fridge.

“Yep,” he called after a beat, pulling the jar out and twisting around. “You want some of this?”

“Just a little. Don’t make it too thick.”

Despite his previous derision of Dennis’s music taste, he found himself humming along to some of it anyway, swaying his hips slightly where he stood. It’s not that he found it any less shitty, just that he’d heard it all enough times by now that he knew half the lyrics, and it was pretty catchy. He caught Dennis smirking at him across the room as he lay some deli meat across both their lunches, and steadfastly ignored him.

Mac mostly just stacked his own sandwich with lots of meat and cheese, but Dennis liked his with all of the vegetables he had stuffed in the bottom drawer. Mac was still chopping up pepper when Dennis flattened out the comforter and made his way across the room — he had to navigate a little bit around the various cleaning supplies and big bags of trash that he had to take out later, which were stuffed with holey old t-shirts from his closet that he wanted to toss. He bypassed Mac to grab some mineral water from the fridge, the gross shit that always made Mac gag.

“My lunch ready yet, babe?” he asked, an annoying smile on his face.

He leaned into the counter next to him, tipping his bottle back. Mac hip-checked him hard enough that some of the water splashed over his face and made him splutter.

“You dick!”

Mac snorted. “You started it. And no, _honey_ , your lunch is not ready yet.”

“Well, snap to! What’s taking so long?”

“You put every veggie that they sell at the farmer’s market on yours, that’s what’s taking so long!”

“You’re so slow. What’s the point of you?”

“I’m so sorry, your highness. Should I get barefoot and pregnant now or are you saving that request for later?” Mac asked mildly.

Dennis snorted so hard that he was coughing a little when he fell against Mac’s side. Mac chuckled too, although reluctantly. He poked at Dennis’s ribs, muttering, “Get off of me,” and Dennis leaned away and wiped some mineral water off of his chin. He stayed hovering by the counter until Mac was finished, and the second that he put the top piece of bread on, Dennis snatched the plate away. He at least ducked in to press a swift kiss to Mac’s cheek before turning around and heading to the table, leaving Mac to trail after him with his own lunch, grumbling. He grabbed a beer from the fridge on his way.

The apartment was warm with the windows thrown open to let in the sun, both of them stripped down to just t-shirts and loose pants because they were busy working around the apartment. Mac could already feel that he needed a shower after this and he wondered absently if he should bother asking Dennis to join him under the guise of water conservation or if he should just skip straight past the pretense.

Dennis tangled their ankles together lightly under the table and took a big first bite of his food.

“This is good,” he sighed, wiping his face off with a paper towel napkin and smiling prettily across at Mac. “The pesto was a great idea.”

“Not for me,” said Mac around his own big mouthful. He ignored how Dennis grimaced at him. “It’s too healthy and shit. I need carbs. I need energy for the gym.”

“How is pesto too healthy for you?” Dennis laughed.

“It’s green, and there’s tomatoes too. That’s too much vegetables.”

“You’re gonna die before you’re forty,” Dennis said lightly. He yanked Mac’s ankle closer, running his foot up Mac’s calf. “You’re not really going to the gym later, are you?”

“Yeah, I was going to. I’m trying to get jacked, bro! That means I gotta work out daily now that I’ve started, or my muscles will shrivel up and die and they’ll never work again. Dee told me all about it. She watched a documentary.” Mac looked up. “Why?”

Dennis’s lower lip jutted out a little.

“I thought we were gonna go to Salvation Army. You’ve broken, like, half of my coffee mugs so I need some more.”

“Why do I have to be there for that?”

“’Cause it’s your fault! That means you’ve gotta come,” he insisted. “Plus Charlie wanted us down at the bar to help him design some Paddy’s Pub t-shirts later. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mac frowned. “I guess I could go to the gym tonight. It’s open 24/7.”

Dennis looked down at his plate and didn’t say anything. He was still holding half a sandwich in one hand but he was picking at crumbs with his other anyway. Mac glanced up at him, and sighed.

“What?” he said.

“You said you’d go with me to that concert later,” Dennis muttered. “I spent forever getting those tickets off of eBay. It’s a laser lights show! Forget it, it doesn’t matter. I’ll take Charlie or something.”

Mac watched him for a long moment. Dennis didn’t look at him, frowning stubbornly at his plate with his forehead creased. He looked kind of ridiculous taking another big bite of his lunch when he was pouting like that. Mac’s lips twitched.

“No, don’t do that,” Mac said finally. “I can get up early to work out tomorrow.”

“No, it’s fine,” Dennis insisted, glaring at him. “Go tonight. I don’t care.”

“Come on, I said I’d go with you—”

“Well, now I don’t want you to come!”

“Don’t take Charlie, man,” he complained. “Charlie doesn’t even like them! He’s gonna show up super high and pass out in his seat and he won’t even enjoy it. I’ll go.”

He watched Dennis for a long few seconds, waiting on an answer. Dennis’s expression didn’t waver, but eventually he grunted and put the last fourth of his sandwich down on his plate. He shoved his chair back, getting up, still without looking at him.

“Fine, if you insist,” he said at last. “I’m gonna take this trash out.”

Mac rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he said. “Hey, can I eat this if you’re not gonna finish it?”

He was already reaching across the table for the leftovers of Dennis’s lunch, even though he still had half of his own left. Dennis whipped around and smacked Mac’s hand.

“Absolutely not!” he said. “You don’t get any of my amazing sandwich after bitching about how it was too healthy. No way.”

“I made it!” Mac said.

Dennis snatched up his plate, glaring at him as he went back into the kitchen.

“Dennis, don’t — Oh, come on. Don’t do that, I said I’ll eat it. I thought you were all anti-waste and shit.”

Dennis maintained eye contact as he opened the garbage can and dumped what was left of his lunch into it. He set the plate on the counter, and Mac crossed his arms.

“You’re such a dick,” Mac complained.

Dennis’s glare melted for the first time, and he arched an eyebrow sharply, the thin line of his mouth softening in contrast. When he passed the table, he ducked down, cupping Mac’s face between his hands and drawing him up into a very gentle kiss. Mac tilted up toward him, and even though he didn’t relax his arms or the set of his forehead, he swayed toward him anyway. Dennis stroked his thumbs over his cheeks, pressing several more soft kisses to his mouth. Mac parted his lips a little, and Dennis slotted their mouths together for a long, drawn-out couple of beats. He still tasted a little like pesto.

“I know,” he said smugly, reaching to rake his fingers through Mac’s hair and laughing at the resulting shout as Mac’s hands jumped up to smooth it back down. “Be right back.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Mac glared at him as he gathered up some of the bags of trash and left the apartment. But as soon as he was out of sight, he couldn’t help rolling his eyes, and he went back to his lunch with a little smile tugging at his still-warm lips.

 

Dennis trailed his mouth a little further down Mac’s neck, suckling gently enough not to leave a bruise. Mac sighed, his eyes tipped closed. His fingers skimmed across the skin exposed above the waist of Dennis’s tight jeans, and he dipped to stick a thumb into his back pocket. Dennis hummed against his throat, leaning up to nibble on his ear.

“Guys, can you stop sucking face for five seconds? I need help here!” Charlie yelled.

Mac tipped Dennis’s chin up with two fingers and leaned in to kiss him again. Dennis hummed against his lips, brushing his fingers back through Mac’s hair.

“What are you yammering on about?” Mac asked, without looking away from Dennis. The smile Dennis gave him was luminous and beautiful.

“Yeah, shut up, Charlie,” Dennis murmured.

Mac pulled him in closer with grasping hands when Dennis ducked down close enough to brush his mouth, tilting his head and trying to get more. Dennis breathed, _“Ah, ah, ah,”_ in reprimand and pushed him further back against the bar with the hands on his hips.

“Seriously? Are you being serious right now?” Charlie demanded. He sounded loud, and close by; Mac looked up to find him glaring just a few feet away, and only because Dennis tucked his face back into Mac’s neck and started biting teasingly at his collarbone. “You guys, I’m not even supposed to be bartending! I suck, I’m fucking up drink orders left and right, everyone’s pissed at me—”

“Then learn to open a beer,” Dennis snorted. Mac snickered, and squeezed his ass. “It’s not that hard.”

“I’m not even supposed to be the bartender!” Charlie said. “Dennis, I’m—”

“Shut up, Charlie, we’re busy,” Mac snapped. Dennis’s mouth found its way up to his jaw, obscuring Mac’s view somewhat as he scraped his teeth against Mac’s stubble.

“I can see you,” Charlie said irritably, “and you’re not busy. You’ve been standing around making out with each other for almost forty-five minutes.”

“We’re playing this awesome game Mac came up with,” Dennis said, gloating even as he twisted around briefly to glare.

Mac made a little irritated noise at having him distracted and pressed his palm against Dennis’s cheek, turning him back toward him instead. Dennis made a little sound and slid his mouth over Mac’s again immediately.

“Yeah,” Mac agreed, between sinking his teeth into Dennis’s lower lip and pressing soothing kisses to the corner of his mouth. “I take a drink of something and then Dennis has to guess what it was. He gets double points if he can guess the brand too.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to focus on this one,” Dennis said. He nudged his chin up, bumping it against Mac’s. He rubbed his thumb across Mac’s lower lip, slow and agonizing. “Do it again, I need another taste to be able to guess.”

“Okay, close your eyes.”

“See?” Charlie said shrilly, and they both looked at him. “You’re not even doing what you say you’re doing! Dennis, you’re not even anywhere near his mouth!”

“Are you still here, bro?” Mac asked. “I thought you’d have walked off by now.”

“Yeah,” said Dennis, nodding.

Charlie gave an irritated shriek in the back of his throat and stomped off. They looked after him for a few seconds before Dennis shrugged and turned back to Mac.

“Okay, are you ready?”

“Not yet,” said Mac. “You didn’t shut your eyes! You can’t look.”

Mac covered Dennis’s eyes with one hand for him because he didn’t trust him not to cheat, although saying so just made Dennis grumble in protest. He made like he was going to bite Mac’s wrist, but he couldn’t quite reach it; Mac pinched him for trying. He grabbed one of the cans nearby and took a healthy couple of swigs of beer.

“Okay,” he said, taking his hand off of Dennis’s face. “Come here.”

Dennis cradled his cheeks eagerly and pulled him down to his mouth. He tugged on his lip, then swept his tongue over it and into Mac’s mouth, sliding over the inside of his cheek. He curled across the roof of his mouth as he pulled away, humming thoughtfully. Before he could put a ton of distance between them, Mac tightened his grip around his waist and tugged him hard against his body. Dennis caught himself on Mac’s arms and was still laughing when Mac kissed him again, more insistently this time. After a moment Dennis wound his arms around his neck with a contented little sigh and opened up against him.

“Mmm,” he said thoughtfully a few minutes later, still peppering in soft presses of his lips to Mac’s instead of pulling away completely. “That was Guinness, I’m sure of it.”

“Good tongue.”

Dennis laughed.

“I know.” He acquiesced to another long kiss before pulling back, saying, “My turn.”

Instead of covering his eyes, Mac let his head drop to side while Dennis picked something to drink. He busied himself pressing kisses to his throat, biting at the dip of his collar and licking softly around his Adam’s apple because he knew it made Dennis squirm. Dennis’s arms were moving to the side of him, one hand anchored on Mac’s hip and squeezing every now and again as he kissed his neck, the other messing around with bottles on the counter. There was a spot just below his ear that tasted bitter from where he’d spritzed his cologne, but Mac didn’t shy away from it; he hated how sharp and unpleasant it was on his tongue but he loved how Dennis sighed and reached to scrunch his hair with the fingers of his free hand. Mac nosed at the same spot after, pressing softer kisses there. He felt Dennis’s throat dip when he finally picked a drink and swallowed, and then swallowed something else — he knew he’d taken a shot because of the softly hissed, “ _Ah_ ,” he made when he took the first gulp, the sound he always made when he took a shot of something harsh. Mac kissed at his jaw and listened as he cleared his throat.

“Okay,” Dennis said, a little hoarsely.

Mac was already halfway back to pushing his mouth against Dennis’s. His tongue still tasted sharp, even under the more pleasant tang of citrus masking the liquor. Mac cupped the back of his head in one hand, urging him closer so he could lick deeper into his mouth. Dennis’s fingers danced across Mac’s waist, drawing light and shivery patterns across his back and down the lines of his hips. Mac panted softly against his lips and dove back in.

Dennis tilted his chin up to meet him in the next kiss. Mac slipped his tongue back into the warmth of his mouth, and he still tasted a little bit like liquor along the back of his teeth and underneath his tongue. Dennis’s nails scraped just above the waistline of his jeans and Mac groaned quietly, tightening his grip with the hand threaded into his hair.

Even though Mac was supposed to be the one guessing, Dennis licked at his upper lip as they pulled away.

“Mmm…That’s Jäger,” said Mac, smacking his lips around the taste. “And by the way — Gross.”

Dennis paused in mouthing at the underside of his chin to chuckle, his body shaking with it. He leaned up to look Mac in the eye. They were close enough that when he shook his head side to side, nice and slow, their noses brushed together and Mac got a little dizzy trying to keep Dennis’s eyes in focus.

“No one’s making you drink it.”

Mac tugged him in closer with a little grunt.

“You are, by kissing me.”

“Okay,” Dennis breathed. “I’ll go find someone else to kiss. Someone who appreciates it.”

“Try it, bitch. I’ll kick both of your asses up and down the street.”

Dennis trailed his hands up Mac’s arms, the pressure barely there but almost ticklish so that Mac shivered. Mac laced his fingers against the small of Dennis’s back, keeping him pulled in toward him.

“I’d like to see you try that,” said Dennis.

Neither of them had had anything to drink but Dennis tipped in against his mouth anyway, harder than the comparatively gentle presses of his lips that he had been skimming along his throat. He pinned Mac against the bar with his body and looped his arms around his neck, burying his hands in his hair and tugging. Mac sighed into his open mouth.

They barely parted for breath before Dennis tilted his head and crushed his lips against Mac’s harder. He kept inching up and then down against Mac’s body, like he was trying to find a way to get closer to him, but they were already pressed together chest to hips and there was nowhere else to go. Mac dug his nails into his back, around his spine. Dennis made a quiet noise against his lips, sounding content, and relaxed his kiss a little bit so that it wasn’t quite so aggressive; Mac was nearly smiling when he coaxed Dennis’s mouth open with prodding flicks of his tongue.

“Wanna go finish this game at your place?” Mac asked against his lips, his own breathing labored.

Dennis pulled away and his gaze was sharp, their faces close enough that he had to dart his focus between each of Mac’s eyes to look at him directly. Mac’s hands tightened around his back. He licked his lips, his eyebrows raised, and he could feel his own hopefulness etched across his face.

“We can’t,” he breathed, ducking in to kiss Mac some more — harder but less risqué than before, almost needy. Mac’s disappointment dissolved under the pressure of it. “We’re in the middle of a shift, dude.”

Mac glanced around the bar.

“Oh, yeah.” He frowned, looking back at Dennis with wide eyes. “Can I come over later? I wanna sleep over.”

Dennis touched his mouth with two fingers, pressing down against Mac’s pout. He laughed, and reached down, fumbling until he found Mac’s hand. Mac let him back up far enough away from him to find his footing, and readjusted their grip so their fingers threaded together. Dennis squeezed tight, then let him go.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, rolling his eyes. “Fine, stay over.”

Mac beamed and leaned down to press what was meant to be a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. At the last second before he pulled away, though, Dennis weaved his hand back through his hair and kept him drawn close, and he angled his chin to slot their lips together for a lingering moment.

“Okay, go finish up what you’re supposed to be doing,” he said. His tone was firm but he dotted another kiss to the side of Mac’s chin as he said it anyway. “Go on, go.”

But he stayed trapping him against the bar until Mac shoved Dennis off of him hard, making him stumble. Mac rolled his eyes, listening to him laugh delightedly and tinker around with the bottles in front of him. Dennis poured himself another shot while Mac rounded the counter, and from the other side of it they locked eyes as Dennis downed his chaser. He licked his lips after, mouth still shiny and red from kissing. Mac gave him the finger as he retreated to his post by the door.

Oh, well. Only a few more hours until close.

 

“Do you really have to do that here?”

“Uh, yeah Dennis, I do. Where else am I gonna do it?”

“Anywhere! Do it on the fucking sidewalk for all I care,” he said. He leaned forward and plucked a spare bit of fabric off the carpet, a tiny scrap that must have gotten pushed off the table by accident. “Come on, man, you make a mess of my apartment every time you decide you have to cut up your goddamn t-shirts here. I’m gonna have to vacuum to get bits of ugly slogan tee out of my carpet.”

“First of all, Dennis,” said Mac, twisting around where he was kneeling on the floor and brandishing the hand that was holding the scissors, “for the last goddamn time, my shirts are not _ugly_. They are funny and classic and make my arms and tats look good.”

Dennis pursed his lips but said nothing to that. Still, his gaze made a slow trail down Mac’s biceps.

“And also, I already did one sleeve so now it’s gonna be weird if I don’t finish,” he mumbled.

His tongue poked out in concentration as he snipped along the edge of the sleeve. Behind him, Dennis sighed.

“I don’t see why you had to cut up the shirt off your back. Can’t you have just brought it along?” Dennis said. Mac felt fingers creeping up his spine, and turned around to slap Dennis’s hand away. He fell back into the couch, whining. “Come on! If you’re gonna dangle yourself in front of me, you gotta at least let me play around a little.”

“I’m busy. I’m not dangling myself in front of anything,” said Mac.

He finished cleaning up the edges of the t-shirt and sat back on his heels, yanking it off the coffee table and pulling it on over his head. Dennis complained some more about him raining bits of fabric down onto his floor while Mac stood up and spun around for him.

“What do you think?” he said, holding his arms out and flexing. “I did a good job, huh?”

Dennis took a sip of the beer in his hand as he considered him, eyes lingering for an extra long time on his bare arms.

“Your edges are uneven,” he said eventually. “And you clearly don’t know how to use a scissor because you cut into the neck of the shirt here — and here—”

“Well, this is just phase one,” said Mac, pushing away Dennis’s hand again when he leaned forward to poke at each rip as he mentioned them.

“There’s more phases?” said Dennis. “I hope those don’t also take place in my living room.”

“It doesn’t,” said Mac, bending to gather up the spare thread and recently hewn sleeves on the table into one hand to go dump in the garbage. “Phase two is giving the shirt to Charlie. He can sew more better than me so he fixes all my hems. In return all I gotta do is bring over a case of beer, and maybe some lunch.”

“Great,” Dennis said flatly. He rolled his eyes and put his beer down on the cleared coffee table, patting the couch beside him. “Now will you sit down and pay attention to this episode? I’m completely lost.”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh! Just one second.”

Dennis made an irritated sound as he turned his back. Mac disappeared to use his bathroom and then into the kitchen to fish popcorn out of the cabinets. He leaned up onto his toes, because Dennis kept all his healthy snacks in the forefront of the shelves and relegated anything that tasted good all the way to the back. He nearly knocked a bunch of granola out pulling the microwavable bag out. When he finished setting the microwave timer and turned around to toss the plastic, though, he stopped short: Dennis had appeared, leaning against the counter and watching him. Mac jolted, clutching at his heart.

“Jesus Christ, I didn’t hear you get up.” He tossed the cellophane and looked up. Dennis was still just staring at him in silence. “What?”

Dennis relaxed a little, although Mac wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t attuned to noticing his microexpressions by now. The set line of his mouth eased, and he leaned a little more of his weight into the hip knocked against the counter.

“Why are you here, Mac?”

Something in the pit of his stomach froze over, but he wasn’t paying attention to it. The rest of him was already easing into a smile and closing the distance between them like some sort of learned instinct, not natural but by now unignorable. Dennis sighed and leaned into the pressure of Mac’s hand on his ribs.

“What do you mean?” said Mac, laughing a little. “We’re hanging out and watching TV.”

He darted forward to land a swift kiss against his cheek that missed a little, brushing his jaw instead. Dennis’s eyes closed for a fraction of a second.

“No, I know,” he said. His hand landed on Mac’s arm and squeezed. “I just mean, like…Why don’t you ever go home?”

Mac’s throat felt dry, and he tried to swallow around it. His fingers twitched on Dennis’s side, tightening his grip and nearly pulling away. He almost did anyway, hesitating halfway through turning around. Dennis’s hand slid up to cup the back of his neck, though, stopping him from pulling away after all.

“I…My dad is there,” Mac said quietly, his eyes on the ground. He flicked them up to meet Dennis’s, dropping his hand from his side when he added, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, I don’t,” Dennis sighed. His nails tapped and dug into the back of his neck. “But come on. You’ve been sleeping in my bed nine times out of ten for the last month. We spend all day here, or out together, or whatever, and then go to the bar together, and then you come right back here to sleep.”

Mac wouldn’t look at him directly. Dennis kept scratching at him until he stopped to reach to sweep some of Mac’s hair back from his face. He knew he was pouting a little, a feeling only cemented by Dennis leaning in to press a little kiss to his jutting lower lip. He kept doing it until he was half-laughing, squeezing the sides of Mac’s face between his hands and kissing him and kissing him, and Mac just stood there. Finally, when he failed to get any kind of response from him, Dennis sobered a little and paused, hovering an inch away and darting his eyes all over Mac’s face.

“Fine,” said Dennis. He pushed Mac away hard enough that he hit the counter, his hand lashing out a second too late to catch himself. “Whatever, forget it.”

“Dennis,” he sighed.

“I said forget it!”

Dennis turned away and went to go throw himself back down on the couch. Mac’s teeth gritted together, but before he could decide whether or not to say anything, the microwave started beeping loud and obnoxious. After a second’s pause, he went to get it and dump it into a big bowl instead.

“Here,” he said, shoving it at Dennis.

Dennis’s couch wasn’t big enough to comfortably lay down but he managed it by kicking his feet up onto one armrest and pillowing his head in Dennis’s lap; Dennis allowed it with an irritated little exhale, pushing the popcorn bowl to his other side to make room for him. He brushed his fingers through Mac’s hair, and they were quiet for a good ten minutes before the show that they were supposed to be catching up on together lapsed into another commercial break.

Mac closed his eyes, turning away from the TV to face up toward the ceiling instead. Dennis’s hand mussed through his hair again, tightening a little bit. Mac swallowed and looked up at him.

Dennis wasn’t facing him, so mostly he was looking at the underside of his chin. It wasn’t a particularly flattering angle but all he could think about was how soft the thin skin there was and how prettily Dennis whispered his name when he put his mouth on it, all gentle and uninhibited and tender, and like he never wanted to say anyone else’s name ever again. Dennis made like he was going to twirl a strand of hair around his finger, but it was far too short for that.

“My mom’s so angry all the time now. I think because things are so tense,” Mac said.

Dennis blinked, tearing his attention away from a commercial about cat food and looking down at him instead.

“Huh?” he asked, but his hand raked more deliberately through Mac’s hair again, intense and with purpose instead of the absentminded way he’d been playing with it before. Mac leaned into it.

“She won’t say shit to either one of us but it’s just like…Every time we’re all at home together it’s like, I don’t know. Waiting to see who’s gonna tear whose throat out first,” said Mac. He closed his eyes again, nestling further into his lap. “I know it’s gonna happen. My dad’s so angry, he’s only there because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He hasn’t, um. He hasn’t said a word to me in weeks. He just glares when we’re in the same room together until I figure out somewhere to fuck off to.”

Dennis’s fingers trailed down the side of his face, tracing down a sideburn. He brushed over his nose, and down one of his cheeks. He lightly touched his mouth for a second before drifting to rest his palm against Mac’s neck. All that time and Mac still didn’t open his eyes.

“So you come here.”

Mac breathed out.

“Yeah.” He blinked up at him, getting him back in focus. Dennis was watching him with an expression that he couldn’t quite read, closed off and a little bit guarded. Mac said, “Is that okay? I can…I can go somewhere else some nights. I’m sure Charlie wouldn’t mind a couple more days on his couch. I always bring weed, and—”

Dennis bent over to press his lips to Mac’s, cutting him off before he could finish listing off the things that made him and Charlie such good roommates. Mac reached to slip his hand through his hair, their mouths moving together softly. Dennis’s lips lingered on his for a long moment before he pulled away, sitting upright again. Mac watched him as Dennis brushed Mac’s determinedly flat hair off his forehead again and rubbed his thumb underneath.

“Maybe tomorrow night we can eat dinner on the roof,” said Dennis, nibbling lightly at his own lip. He splayed his hand across Mac’s chest, right between his ribs. “What do you think? You go get that good beer I like from that place across town, and I can order us Chinese? It’s supposed to be warm out. It might be nice.”

Mac looked at him for a long moment. Dennis’s expression grew blanker as the seconds ticked by, but as he opened his mouth to go on — probably to take it back, knowing him — Mac split into a big smile.

“Okay,” he said, nuzzling closer to his stomach. “That does sound nice.”

“Yeah?” said Dennis. He scrunched Mac’s shirt up in his hand.

“Yeah, why not?”

Dennis was smiling slightly this time as he leaned down, and Mac lifted himself up as far as he could go from his prone position to meet him in the middle for a kiss. He could only crane his neck up for a few seconds, though, before it got too painful to maintain, and he fell back into Dennis’s lap with a little grunt. Dennis laughed, swiping a thumb against Mac’s lower lip, and got comfortable against the back cushions as his attention returned to the TV.

Mac had already missed a little bit of the episode, and could not make any sense of it no matter how hard he focused. He quickly resorted to asking Dennis for clarifications, and Dennis immediately got irritated with his endless stream of questions.

“I don’t know either, okay, man? I told you, I’m not really following any of this.”

“Well, you’re watching it more closely than I am!” Mac argued.

“Yeah, but you keep interrupting it to talk over everybody and ask me shit, so I’m missing everything!”

Dennis munched on most of the popcorn while they were arguing, occasionally popping some into Mac’s mouth for him when he stuck his tongue out for it. They bickered well into the next commercial break, which only served to deepen both of their confusion and irritate Dennis further.

“You know what else is pissing me off?” Dennis said, and without waiting for an answer he plunged on. “You eat all of my groceries but you never go shopping.”

“It’s not my house, _why_ would I go shopping?”

“Because you’re staying here most nights and eating all of my shit!” Dennis snapped.

“It’s not like you can’t afford it,” he snorted, crossing his arms.

“Actually, I can’t,” Dennis said. “You working at the bar is starting to eat into my profits. I was supposed to have saved enough by now to get some work done on my car, which it is in _desperate_ need of, by the way. But now we have to pay you to be our fucking bouncer!”

“How did this become a fight about this?” Mac demanded.

He pushed himself up so they were sitting beside each other, feeling for the first time like Dennis had a height advantage as he loomed over him.

“I’m just saying!”

Dennis’s arms flopped into his lap now that he no longer had Mac to rest them on. He moved the nearly-empty popcorn bowl off the couch and onto the coffee table when he nearly upended it over the rug.

“Oh, okay, well I’m sorry!” Mac snapped. “How about you fire me, then? And you can go back to letting your customers kick your ass every night when you try to—”

“Oh please,” Dennis rolled his eyes, “you don’t do that much for us.”

“I do too! You _begged_ me to come and work for you!” said Mac, ignoring how Dennis scoffed so hard that he had to cough to clear his throat afterward. Mac’s hands tightened reflexively into fists. “Well, figure some other shit out because I am _not_ quitting, and you are _not_ going to convince me to sign some dumb contract like Dee did so you can pay me less than minimum wage. She’s a straight up idiot for doing that. Go get a second job or some shit like the rest of the Americans that need dough—”

He was so busy ranting that he didn’t notice how Dennis’s expression had smoothed over, all the angry lines leeching out of it.

“I was actually thinking that maybe I should get a new place,” Dennis said loudly over him, and Mac stumbled to a halt.

“—because you grew up rich so you don’t have a fucking _work ethic_ , you piece of shit, and I — What?”

“Maybe I could move,” Dennis said, slower. “Find a cheaper apartment. That would help me save money.”

“Oh.” Mac frowned, dropping his arms as he looked around the room. “But I like your place, Den. It’s really close to the bar, and it’s not, like, _that_ small. At least compared to some of the other shitholes in this city.”

“Well, maybe I’ll get a roommate,” said Dennis. For some reason he just kept staring at the side of Mac’s face, gentle but intense at the same time like he was trying to bore a hole right through his profile by sheer force of will. Mac finally turned to meet his eye and Dennis shrugged one shoulder, a small smile playing on his lips. “That would cut costs by a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to get a roommate, dude.” Mac grimaced. “Whoever you find is gonna piss me off so much. He’s gonna be here all the time, and then we can’t bang wherever we feel like anymore. Plus what if he’s annoying? He’ll probably be super annoying, everybody is! People are so shitty, bro. And what if he hates gay people? He’s probably gonna be _so_ homophobic, I don’t wanna deal with that when we—”

“Mac,” he sighed dramatically, and Mac broke off to look at him openly.

Dennis was rolling his eyes and he reached out until he found Mac’s hand, trapping it between both of his own. Mac squeezed automatically, his eyes wide.

“What?” Mac asked.

“ _Mac_ ,” Dennis said. “God, you are so fucking stupid, huh?”

“Hey. Come on.”

He smacked at him with his free hand. Dennis just laughed, his hands tugging around Mac’s as he tried futilely to dodge it. He scooted a little closer, and Mac watched their thighs touch for a long moment before looking back up at him.

“Mac, you shit,” he said, pulling his hands free to twist them together on his own lap. “Don’t you think maybe we could help each other here?”

Mac blinked at him for a couple of seconds. “What do you mean?”

Dennis made a strained noise.

“Well, I need money…and you always need some money,” he said slowly, “and you need somewhere else to live that isn’t with your stupid parents. You said you were looking for an apartment anyway, or at least you were supposed to be. Not that I’ve actually seen you going to any listings lately, but — Don’t you think, _maybe_ , it might be a good idea if we…you know…got a place together?”

Dennis watched him, biting his lip, and Mac stared back with his own parted.

“Oh,” Mac said at last. He swallowed, his throat suddenly a whole lot dryer than before. Dennis’s mouth pressed together in a thin line, watching him sharply. “Oh. You want—?”

“I just think it could be a good idea,” said Dennis quickly. “For the both of us. I’m not — I mean, I wasn’t thinking anything serious. I wasn’t asking — Not like that, I wasn’t asking you as like, my…Um. I was thinking more like a two-bedroom type of situation. Two beds, two baths. Just a regular roommate type of deal here.”

He trailed off, still watching Mac with nerves trembling through him clear as day. Mac blinked rapidly, trying to take it in. Dennis wouldn’t take his eyes off of him, though, making it difficult to concentrate, and the longer he went without answering, the closer Dennis seemed to edge toward saying something else; his mouth opened a few times like he was going to. Mac decided to take some mercy on him before he dug himself down further into a hole.

He scooted closer to Dennis on the couch, reaching out to touch — He didn’t really have a plan where, and his hand hovered over Dennis’s knee, and one of his twitching hands, before finally raising to smooth a thumb across the lines in his forehead. Dennis relaxed slightly under his touch, so Mac gave him more of it; palming his cheek, stroking down his arm.

“That, um,” Mac said finally, brilliantly. He pulled his hand away just to clench it on his thigh. He was watching his fist but he could still feel Dennis watching him. “That’s a good idea, man. You know, just to save money and shit. Apartments these days are like, so expensive. And anything beats staying at my house. Um…”

“So…Yeah?” Dennis asked. “Is that a yes?”

“Yeah,” he said, aiming for casual and missing by a lot. “Why not?”

He glanced up. Dennis really did look beautiful when he smiled like that, so wide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dennis is a uhaul lesbian, pass it on [x](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/182983401545)


	10. i bet all i have on that furrowed brow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Dennis apartment hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting a bit early because i'm gonna be away this weekend! also it's been over a month so lmao "a bit early" might be a stretch anyways. love u guys! x

Working at the bar always gave Mac plenty of time to sleep in on Monday mornings, which he appreciated and generally took ample advantage of. What he didn’t appreciate quite so much was Dennis waking up at nine in the goddamn morning, clattering around loudly until Mac got up too, drinking most of the coffee before Mac even pulled on a pair of (stolen) basketball shorts, and then demanding that Mac be ready for the day by the time he got back from getting them bagels from the coffee shop. He barely even kissed him before he flew out the door, which Mac barely returned around his firm scowl. There was absolutely no viable reason to rush around like this before noon.

He showered and got dressed, somewhat — he was at least wearing a shirt and some underwear when Dennis got back, boasting of bagels and Mac’s coffee order and dumping everything on the table in front of the couch where Mac was sprawled watching an old sports game.

“So,” said Dennis, sitting down next to him and pulling the newspaper closer, while Mac chose to dive for the everything bagel instead, “I’ve been making up a list of demands that I have for this new place, and — Mac, you animal. Would you please stop stuffing your face and listen up? This is important shit that I’m talking about here. And turn off the TV, my God. I swear you are ADD as shit.”

“That’s offensive. I think,” Mac said, although it came out very muffled around all the cream cheese sticking his tongue to the bottom of his mouth. “Hey!”

Dennis whipped the remote off his lap and muted the game, then tossed it to the other side of the couch.

“Will you focus up, please?” he asked sternly.

Mac rolled his eyes.

“Alright, I’m paying attention,” said Mac, immediately tuning him out as the first slide of his iced coffee made its way down his throat. He moaned at the caffeine.

Dennis was watching him with wide eyes when Mac blinked back to reality. He shook his head, slowly.

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis said. He cleared his throat, gaze jumping back to the paper in his hands. “As I was saying. I’ve been compiling a list of all the things that I’m going to need out of an apartment so that we can begin to narrow down places to look at. I’m thinking that if we go to a couple of showings a week, we should be able to get into somewhere relatively soon. I made a schedule—”

“I have stuff I want too,” said Mac, frowning. “I’m not settling.”

“No, of course we won’t be settling,” Dennis said dismissively. “But we’re reasonable. We’re adults. We can find something in our price range that still fits all of our needs together.”

“Okay,” said Mac, munching on more of his bagel. “So what are you looking for?”

“Well,” he said, crossing out what appeared to be completely random personal ads with a pen that had Mac’s teeth marks in it, “What’s really paramount to me is _space_.”

“What do you mean? Dude, I’m gonna be all up in everywhere, it’s an apartment. It’s gonna be sm—”

“No, I know,” said Dennis, rubbing a soothing hand on his arm. Mac quieted down quickly. Looking pleased, Dennis squeezed his bicep and went back to crossing out ads. “I just mean that I don’t want to be all cramped up in two rooms like it’s a fucking hotel. I need to be able to stretch my legs, you know? That being said, I don’t want it to be all _empty_ or anything. Just having our own rooms, our own bathrooms, and a living room would be fine.”

“That’s gonna get expensive, bro,” said Mac. “How much do you think something like that goes for? Over a thousand each, probably—”

“Well, not if we stay in South Philly,” Dennis laughed. “Oh, that reminds me. I’m not that picky about if the utilities are included, except I do want them to pay for the—”

“I don’t give a shit, man,” said Mac, banging his fist on his knee. “I just want a place near the bar!”

“—because that will really start to piss me off if I’m — What?” said Dennis, spluttering to a halt.

“I wanna be able to walk to work when it’s cold out without dying of frostbite,” Mac explained.

“I assumed we would carpool.” Dennis blinked at him. “I have a car, you know. I can just drive you there, since we’ll be leaving from the same place and everything.”

“Oh. Yeah,” said Mac, scratching at his neck. He took another big gulp of his coffee. “I guess I didn’t really think about that. Well, I still wanna be close to the bar in case we leave at different times or you ditch me or something.”

Dennis laughed. “Why would I ditch you?”

Mac studied his face for a long moment, his lips pressed together. As Dennis’s forehead began to crease, Mac leaned in toward him and jabbed a finger at the newspaper.

“I just wanna be close to the bar,” he said, his mouth set stubbornly. “This place is already kinda far for walking, you know? Add that to the list!”

“This isn’t my list, it’s a newspaper. Do you need your eyes checked? Would you get off of it?” He yanked the paper out from under Mac’s hand. “I’ll go get my list.”

He tossed the paper and pen to the couch and got up to go rustle through his shelves. Mac shrugged and reached for the remote to unmute his game, sinking further into his seat and finishing off his bagel.

“I thought I said to turn that shit off,” Dennis complained as he came back to the couch. He moved the newspaper off his seat to make room to sidle right up against Mac’s side again.

“So what? You’re not the boss of me,” said Mac.

He held the remote out of Dennis’s reach when he went to grab for it, starting to laugh when Dennis got increasingly desperate yanking on his arm and scrabbling at his wrist. Finally Dennis jabbed him hard in the side and Mac reflexively doubled over, and with a triumphant whoop Dennis muted the game again and threw the remote to the ground, kicking it far away across the room. Mac crossed his arms with a huff.

“Now, back to business,” said Dennis.

Mac rolled his eyes but tried to pay attention, because the sooner he let Dennis talk himself out, the sooner he could go back to watching sports. The caffeine was really doing wonders for his focus; he finished his coffee in record time and sent the plastic cup flying across the room toward the trash can. Dennis broke off his discussion about his demands in square inches to yell at him when the top came off the cup and the remnants of his coffee splattered around the kitchen. The resultant fight determining who would mop the floor thoroughly distracted them both from the new apartment situation, until they wound up forgetting about it completely.

 

“Well, click on that one again.”

“Babe, I _just did_. That’s the thing I was just on. Get — Get away from the screen. Get your hand away from the — _Mac_!”

“Try that one again!”

“I just did, I’m telling you, there’s not anymore—”

“Oh.” Mac chewed on the end of his pen, thinking hard. “Hey, click on that one again.”

Dennis rolled his eyes so hard that Mac was slightly concerned he was going to break whatever attached them to the back of his head. He grabbed for the laptop on the table with one hand, tugging it out from in front of Dennis and pulling it toward himself, and ignored Dennis trying to grab for it again.

“Give that back!”

“Do you think your credit card got stolen?” Mac asked.

He clicked on Dennis’s checking account again, scrolling through the list of latest charges. Most of them were purchases of the pretentious beer he liked from down the street, the kind that he stocked his fridge with that left no room for the cheaper stuff Mac preferred to down in the off-hours when they were drinking at Dennis’s apartment instead of at the bar. Mac kept telling him that it wasn’t worth shelling out extra for fancy beer when it all got them drunk just the same, but Dennis never listened. Mac was hoping that when they lived together, he could at least take over shopping for their liquor and force him to drink the cheap stuff that way. It wasn’t worth going broke over.

“No, nobody stole my credit card,” said Dennis. He yanked the laptop back. Mac released it, grumbling. “Don’t go through my bank statements, man, that’s so personal!”

“You pulled it up right in front of me,” Mac muttered, crossing his arms. He leaned into Dennis’s space again, squinting at the screen. After a concerned scan, he tapped at one of the totals. “Are you sure nobody swiped your card? What’s this, this charge for a hundred bucks at Estée Lauder? That’s gotta be somebody else, right? Let’s just call up AmEx—”

“No! No!” Dennis said, face flushing. “That’s no need to — Goddamn it, Mac. Thanks for rubbing it in, but who in God’s name wants to steal from me? This is me! I’m just broke! Goddamn it, we’re screwed.”

He slammed the laptop closed and shoved it away across the table with a sigh. Mac patted him consolingly on the back, squeezing his shoulder, until Dennis pushed at his thigh and Mac went back to the notepad he had out in front of him. Theoretically he was crunching numbers, because Dennis had failed half his math classes in high school and cheated his way through the required courses in college, but in reality he was doodling nonsense patterns along the margins of the page.

“We’re not screwed,” Mac muttered. He reached out and snagged a chip from the bag lying nearby. When they’d started doing their accounting earlier, it had been nearly full, but they would need to make a run down to the bodega soon. “We’ve just gotta figure something out. There’s gotta be something we can cut out, something we don’t need. Like, a few days’ dinner we can pass on, or something with the bar. We just haven’t seen it yet.”

“There’s nothing!” Dennis yelled. “There is no way to crunch these numbers in a way that leaves us enough for a down payment on that place and still afford the first three months’ rent.” Dennis pushed his hands through his hair, elbows on the table and his face ducked down. “Goddamn it. We’re gonna have to call that landlord and tell him we’re passing.”

Mac slammed his fist on the table.

“No!” he shouted, loud enough that Dennis jumped. He at least lifted his head and looked Mac in the eye, even if he did it with a scowl. “That place is _perfect_ , bro! I’m not giving it up. We’re never gonna be able to find another place that fits everything we’re looking for. We’re gonna have to cram into a fucking one-room studio apartment forty-five minutes out of the way if we don’t close on this place, dude, nothing else is ever gonna be in this price range—”

“Well, what do you suggest, Mac?” Dennis snapped. “Unless you can pull a couple thousand dollars out of your ass, we’re not covering down payment, a security deposit, rent, food, all the shit we need to do when we get there like buying you furniture and hooking up our internet, and probably a million other things that I’m not thinking of! There’s nothing we can do! We don’t have the savings, we just don’t, so…That’s it.”

He sighed, slumping over in his chair with his face buried in his arms. Mac tapped his pen against his notebook, blowing out air and thinking. He scratched mindlessly at the page, and Dennis finally grumbled out, “God _damn_ it,” and slammed his palms on the table. He shoved his chair back, stomping over to yank open the fridge.

Mac had seen people drink beer with all manner of emotions, but someone doing it this angrily was probably a first. Dennis slammed the cap down on the counter and sighed, leaning back on his hand and closing his eyes.

“Let’s just…focus up,” Mac sighed. He ruffled his hair, slapping his hands down on either side of his notepad. He squinted down at the numbers like he could force them to rearrange into triple digits by sheer force of will.

“Focus up?” Dennis said, his volume climbing. “Focus _up_?”

“Yes!” Mac snapped, shifting around in his chair to glare at Dennis. “Don’t yell at me, Dennis, I’m trying to come up with — a _positive_ solution, positive thinking—”

“You have got to stop watching talk show reruns when you’re up late trying to go to sleep,” Dennis snorted. “They are ruining you.”

“Dr. Phil is a genius, you goddamn bitch! Admit it! Take that back!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Dennis said loudly, “because you can’t just pray your way into the kind of money that we need!”

“Well, you do the math, then!” Mac shouted back. He shoved his notepad across the table. “How much money is it that we need?”

“Does it matter?” Dennis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did when the bar got too busy and he was trying to stave off a headache. “We already know it’s more than what we have. Like, _way_ more than we have.”

“Well, if we had a _goal_ in mind—”

“Fine!”

Dennis slammed his beer down and strode back over to the table. Mac edged his chair out of the way to give him room as he snatched the pen out of Mac’s hand and bent over. It was a testament to how irritated he was by the whole apartment debacle that he barely sneered at the mangled mess Mac’s teeth had made of the cap before he busied himself studying the numbers. Mac watched his forehead creasing deeper and deeper for about two minutes before he remembered how many hours Dennis used to pour over his very basic algebra homework and he pushed his chair back instead.

Not that Mac had ever passed a math class either, but that was more because he couldn’t be bothered to try; he had spent enough time as a kid doing his parents’ taxes and paying the bills when his mom was too drunk to give a fuck that he could work out basic budgeting without much of a problem. This just wasn’t worth trying to wait out.

He snatched Dennis’s discarded beer and sprawled out on the couch. The only remotely watchable thing on cable was an old episode of Jackass, but it was a good one.

“Bro, I could totally do shit like this,” Mac said, as the guy on TV flipped off a roof. “Dennis? Don’t you think?”

“What? I…Sure.”

“It’s just these guys and a camera,” Mac reasoned. “And I could just buy a stand for that or something, you know? I don’t even need a dude for that. I guess I could ask Charlie, he’d probably hold a camera for me. Oh, but not for free probably. He’s such a cheap sack of a shit.”

“Mmm,” said Dennis.

“I know!” said Mac. “I’ll get one of those cheap-ass camera stands from, I don’t know…Do you think Walmart sells that? Anyway, it’s all post-effects anyway, right? Like, they’re not even doing all of their own fancy camerawork. I don’t really need Charlie, I guess, I could figure out all that stuff on my own after I capture the footage. I would just need to figure out what I wanna do. Like, backflips? I could do backflips, bro. Or something cooler, maybe I should learn how to jackknife off stuff. I think people really wanna see that!”

Several moments of silence. Then, “…Uh-huh.”

“Man, this is actually a really good idea, now that I’m thinking about it,” said Mac. “Maybe I should really do something with this. What is it, a couple of stunts that you sell to some TV exec jabroni? That’s basically what all these shows are like anyway, you know? Like Jackass and that home movie show where people are always falling over. Except mine would be way better. I would do so much shit that’s way more cooler than them, I’d do some badass zoom-ins and cutscenes. That would make me look so awesome! I mean, I don’t have all the Big Hollywood special effects but I could probably make up for that by adding some at-home flare, you know? Like, cool strobe lighting or — or lasers! Lasers would be so awesome, dude. I mean, that’s what people wanna see! Right? Don’t you think so, Dennis?”

Dennis said nothing. Mac looked over at him after a couple of seconds and said, “Dennis? Right?” prompting Dennis to answer without looking up from the notepad, “…Huh?”

“I know, right? I could totally do shit like this,” Mac agreed, turning back to the TV. “Ah, my beer’s almost empty. Can you get me another one?”

“…Yeah.”

“Great.”

A couple more minutes passed before Mac realized that Dennis hadn’t moved. He got up from the couch during a commercial break to fetch it himself.

“Come on, babe, I ask one little favor,” he complained, pulling open the fridge. “It’s like, you don’t even listen to me sometimes. I’m saying so much awesome stuff over here, and it’s like you’re not even, like, caring about it.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m…What?” Dennis finally glanced over his shoulder at him. “What are you talking about, Mac?”

“I’m talking about Jackass!” Mac said. He wasn’t whining. He wasn’t.

“What? Why are you talking about Jackass?” he asked. Dennis didn’t exactly sound _annoyed_ , at least not yet, but there was a harried edge to his voice that suggested he had something more important to do than listen to Mac pitch a series of extremely lucrative and badass ideas.

“Can you stop for one second and listen to all the cool shit I’m talking about? I have a million-dollar idea here,” he complained, edging up behind him. He glanced at the notepad over Dennis’s shoulder. “What’s that?”

“I’m trying to calculate something,” said Dennis, pushing Mac’s finger out of the way. “Can you just — Can you go away? Can you, like, go away from me for a minute? Go watch more TV.”

“Just move the two, dude. Give me that.”

He snatched the pen away from Dennis, who was more or less trapped between a chair and the arm Mac had snaked under his own. Mac hooked his chin on Dennis’s shoulder to see the notepad better. Dennis huffed, crossing his arms, but he leaned slightly back against Mac’s chest while he worked. Mac quickly added up the last of the numbers Dennis had written down and circled the end result, tossing down the pen and planting his hand on the table.

“There,” he said triumphantly. “Is that it? Are you done?”

“Actually, I am,” Dennis said. He didn’t sound happy about it though. Mac wrapped his arm around Dennis’s waist and pressed a quick kiss to his back, right above his shoulder blade. Dennis leaned further against him, swaying the two of them side to side in place. “That’s it. Two thousand, three hundred, forty-four dollars. That’s how much we need.”

Mac stared down at the paper in front of them, refocusing on the number.

“Fu- _uck_.”

“Yep,” Dennis sighed. He clutched at Mac’s forearm, stroking his thumb against his skin. “So, unless you know how to make a couple grand in just a few weeks…”

“I don’t deal drugs anymore,” Mac said sharply.

Dennis laughed. Mac felt him shaking against him, and tightened his arm around his waist.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” he said, patting Mac’s arm.

He tilted his head back to look up at him, and Mac leaned down to kiss him. Dennis sighed, resettling his weight against him and frowning down at the notepad like he could somehow change the math to produce a significantly lower number by sheer force of will.

“So, two and a half thousand,” Mac said.

“Yeah,” said Dennis. He glanced around the room. “Too bad everything I own is fucking junk. I would pawn something.”

“Yeah. Even your TV is crap,” said Mac. Dennis reached back to slap him in the side. “What? It’s true. You don’t care about any of this garbage.”

“Well, at least I have garbage to care about,” said Dennis. He unwound himself from Mac’s arms and pushed away from the table, pacing through his living room. He pushed his hand through his hair. “Damn it. Goddamn it.”

Mac watched him for a minute, frowning.

“Let’s take a break,” said Mac. “Maybe we’re looking at this too closely. Let’s get something to eat, come back to this later.”

Dennis buried his face in his hands. Mac glanced at him, uncertain, but after a few moments Dennis rubbed at his eyes and looked up at him.

“Yeah,” he murmured. Gaining steam, he added, “Yeah…yeah. Maybe that’s a good idea.”

“I know it is,” said Mac, puffing up proudly. “Come on. What are you in the mood for? Chinese? You like Chinese. Oh! I’m kind of getting a craving for pizza.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” said Dennis. “I don’t want to have a whole heavy dinner yet.”

He was gathering his jacket up while they talked, shrugging his arms through it. He grabbed his keys off the hook and reached back for Mac’s hand, pulling him along through the door and locking it behind them.

“Well, maybe just a snack,” Mac conceded. “Oh, you know what I want?”

Dennis looked over at him, a little smile playing on his face. “What?”

“One of those hot sandwiches from Subway.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Dennis. “That place is so gross. I’m not letting you eat there, come on—”

“But I’m craving it now,” Mac complained. “I want it.”

“Tell you what,” said Dennis, pushing open the door to the stairwell for Mac to go through ahead of him, “how about we go get you a cheesesteak? The really good ones from across town. You like those. And they have some lighter options for me, too, it’s perfect for this time of day.”

Mac squeezed his hand. “Okay!”

Dennis grinned at him for so long that he nearly tripped down the last of the stairs, and Mac had to reach out to steady him with his fingers splayed across his stomach.

It was a little breezy out. The onset of autumn had, all in all, been a travesty, in Mac’s opinion; it was really cutting into when and where he could sport his sleeveless t-shirts. Dennis pulled him closer as they headed down the street toward where he’d parked last night, and Mac curled his free hand around Dennis’s elbow, slouching closer to his body heat. He could see Dennis smiling at him again, out of the corner of his eye.

The car was a couple of streets away. Dennis had barely unlocked it when Mac pulled him to a stop.

“Wh — What are you doing?” said Dennis, glancing at him. “I thought you were hungry.”

“Yeah, I am,” said Mac. He was still staring at the Range Rover. “Hey. Babe…”

“I…What?” said Dennis. He glanced away from Mac, toward the car, eyes skipping back to it reflexively. “What? Oh…Mac. No. No way. Absolutely fucking not.”

Mac finally turned away from the Range Rover, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, relax. I know you’d never give up the car. You care more about that thing than you care about me,” he said.

Dennis elbowed him. Mac grimaced.

“Then what exactly are you thinking?” Dennis said. “Because, you know, I really don’t like it when you get that look on your face.”

“Don’t worry,” said Mac, his mouth twisting grimly. “This time it’s actually gonna hurt me way, _way_ more than it will hurt you.”

 

“Oh, man,” said Charlie. “I can’t _believe_ that you’re doing this.”

“Yeah, Mac, you love this piece of crap,” said Dee. “I thought you’d kick Dennis out onto the streets and steal his one-bedroom long before you gave it up.”

“Hey,” said Dennis defensively. “Mac would never do that to me.”

Dee and Charlie exchanged looks. At the same time, they said, “Well…”

Mac crossed his arms and didn’t chime in, although he was privately wondering if that wasn’t a much better idea than his own. He’d been in mourning all day, from the time Dennis woke him up at the asscrack of dawn to drive him up to Manhattan, while he was paying the guy who had been keeping dad’s old Jeep in storage for him while he’d been down in Philadelphia (including all the unforeseen, and therefore unpaid for, extra time he’d been away), during the whole drive back down to South Philly where they were meeting up with some shady contact Dennis said he found through his father, to the sidewalk outside the bar where they were all standing around the Jeep.

Of course Dennis was suddenly an expert at making money on the black market when it was no longer his own possessions he was giving up, an argument that had arisen several times on the drive to New York and then a couple more times when Mac called him from their separate cars on the way home just to yell at him. And again one more time as soon as Dennis pulled up behind him at the bar.

“This is a good thing,” said Dennis. “Look, Mac. You never used this thing down here anyway. It was just rotting in storage upstate.”

“Don’t touch me,” Mac snapped, shrugging Dennis’s hands off his shoulders when he tried to cajole him into accepting a massage. Mac sniffed. “I love this car. I’ve had it for over a decade.”

“Well, you already promised it away to this dude, so get over it!”

“Don’t get mad at him,” Charlie piped up. “This Jeep is the best thing any of us have ever owned!”

“Thank you,” said Mac, moving closer to him instead. “At least somebody understands.”

“Mac, come _on_ ,” said Dennis. “You’re getting three thousand dollars for it! We’re gonna have enough to cover all the costs of the apartment, _and_ nearly a thousand bucks left over to do whatever we want with!”

“ _We_ are not getting anything!” said Mac. “ _I_ am getting money to do what _I_ want! How did you get involved in it?”

“Oh, now he wants to keep our finances separate,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. “Now that he has some money of his own and isn’t a broke sonofabitch decomposing on my couch and drinking at my bar.”

“Our bar!” said Charlie shrilly.

Mac patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t listen to him, buddy,” he said. “Dennis is just being insensitive and selfish as usual.”

“ _Excuse_ me—!”

“Alright, can we move this along?” Dee said, talking over them all and bulldozing right through the impending argument. “I actually have things I would like to get to later, so — Let’s go. Get a move on here.”

“What do you mean?” Dennis asked. “Aren’t we just heading straight over to the dealer?”

“No,” said Mac.

“There he goes again,” Charlie sighed, tossing up his hands.

“We have to give it a proper send off,” Mac explained, while Dennis and Charlie glared at each other.

“Great,” Dee sighed. “Can we get that started then, so we can get this over with?”

“Right.” Mac clapped his hands together. “So, would anyone like to say a few words before the ceremony begins?”

“There’s a _ceremony_?” Dennis muttered, only to be immediately shushed by all three of the others. He rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“I wanna start!” said Charlie, stepping up to the curb. “I wanna — I’ll start.”

Mac gestured to the car. “Go ahead.”

“Okay, um—” Charlie glanced around at the other three. “Does anybody have champagne?”

Dennis rolled his eyes. “That’s—”

“—a great idea!” said Mac, pumping one fist. “I’ll be right back.”

He fetched one of the nicer bottles from behind the bar, the kind that they liked to use on minor victories that were worth celebrating but not quite up to the standard of breaking out the good tequila. He popped the cork outside, sending it flying into the middle of the street, and then passed the bottle over to Charlie.

“I uh, didn’t have enough hands to grab us all glasses,” he said to Dennis.

“Right.” Dennis was shaking his head at the skyline in the distance, not looking at him at all. Mac huffed and turned his shoulder on him too; they might as well be even.

“We’re all gathered today,” Charlie said magnanimously, spreading his arms, “to celebrate the long and wonderful life…of Mac’s Jeep. You were a good car, Jeep. I smoked weed in you countless times. You brought me to Burger King…a lot.”

“You were in that car for like, one summer, in high school,” Dennis broke in. Mac shushed him down.

“I remember when Mac got really, really drunk at a house party, and he tried to drive us all home,” said Charlie, ignoring them both completely. “Dee was throwing up in the backseat because some guy tried to sleep with her. Then she tried to grab the wheel and nearly crashed us into a tree.”

“I was _saving_ us,” Dee interjected. “Mac was blacked out drunk and nearly ran us all off the road.”

“Yeah, she’s a dumb bitch,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “But you saved us, Jeep. You and your amazing traction on the road, and your sweet, sweet humungous tires. And how you don’t have a roof, so we can just throw bottles out of the side when we think we see a cop. We also took off all the doors, so I could run after you and catch up when Mac was being a dick and tried to drive off without me, although now I know that’s just because he wanted alone time with Dennis so he could pine after him in peace. I don’t forgive him, by the way. But I do forgive _you_ , Jeep, because you didn’t have a choice. And you still don’t have a choice now, while Dennis makes Mac give you up so that he can save a couple of extra dollars.”

“That’s—!” Dennis protested weakly.

Mac and Dee both shushed him loudly. Dennis made an indignant sound, glaring at them, but they both ignored him. He crossed his arms and glowered at the Jeep instead. Mac frowned; the car didn’t deserve his ire.

Charlie was still going on with his sendoff: “And it’s memories like these that really make this a difficult day. But we won’t forget you…No. No. Instead…we’ll remember you. Thanks.”

He took a long drink of the champagne, gave the car a little bow, and stepped back from the curb. Mac clapped for him, although nobody else did, not even when he elbowed Dennis in the ribs.

“Would anyone else like to say something?” Mac asked, looking around at them.

“I don’t,” said Dennis.

“I…I really don’t even want to be here, to be honest,” said Dee. “It’s chilly, and I could be halfway to drunk right now—”

“Well, then I’ll go and say my piece,” Mac announced over her. “Charlie, can I have the champagne? Thank you.”

He stepped up to the curb too and tipped his head back, chugging straight from the bottle. It was extremely bubbly, but he powered through for the sake of ceremony. Swaying slightly on his feet, he cleared his throat and put a hand on the driver’s side door.

“You were my first, and only car,” Mac said, patting its exterior. “I’ve never had such a badass piece of machinery. When you were under me, like, pumping out some really good bass, and I could feel the whole car shaking…that was awesome. Plus I tricked you out with some really big tires, and it was cool.” He took another long drink from the bottle. “I got a lot of roadhead in this car—” (“Oh, come on,” Dennis muttered behind him) “—and plowed a lot of ass in the backseat when I was too drunk to drive us back to my place, or I just wanted to ditch the guy so I could keep drinking with my friends. You got me through some good times, Jeep. Lots of moves. Lots of good memories with a lot of dudes, like I said. Just some good times.”

He patted the side of the car again, and took another swig of champagne.

“Are you almost done?” Dee asked.

“Let the man finish!” Charlie snapped. “This is emotional stuff, you bitch.”

“So I’m gonna miss you, Jeep. Even though now I have a different, much hotter kind of ride to drive me around wherever I want…” He turned around and winked at Dennis. Even though Dennis rolled his eyes back, his cheeks turned bright pink. Beside him, Dee mimed gagging. “You were my first. I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”

He tipped back more champagne. Charlie started clapping behind him. The bottle was nearly finished when Mac smashed it down on the sidewalk, making the others jump back; Dennis shouted out, “Damn it! Give us some warning—” and Mac pressed his lips against his palm and patted it down on the side mirror.

“That was beautiful, man,” said Charlie, rubbing Mac’s shoulder when he stepped back to join the others. They nodded at each other.

Dennis cleared his throat.

“Okay, great!” he said loudly. “Are we done now?”

Mac scowled. “Yeah, asshole. We’re done.”

“Great! Then let’s get this hunk of scrap metal to our shady car dealer!” he said.

Mac glowered. Dennis clapped him on the back, grinning, and rounded the car to swing himself into the passenger’s side.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” said Charlie, patting him on the shoulder. “I think the Jeep really appreciated that.”

Charlie squeezed reassuringly. Mac turned his glare on him.

“Shut up and get in the car, Charlie,” he said with a scowl.

He pulled away from Charlie’s hand and climbed into the driver’s seat. The others clamored into the backseat, and Dennis turned a sunny grin on him as Mac gunned the ignition and peeled out.

 

Mac knocked on the front door louder than before.

“Dennis,” he called, exasperated. “Dude, you’ve had me locked out all day. Can I come in yet or not?”

“One minute!” Dennis said. “I’m almost done.”

Mac crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. Although technically they had moved in yesterday afternoon, most of the next twenty-four hours had been spent unpacking, and so it didn’t really feel like a properly-appreciated first night home. Mac only been allowed into their new place until three in the afternoon today before Dennis kicked him out for reasons he refused to divulge, so Mac had spent half of his first real day in his brand-new apartment lying on Charlie’s couch, smoking weed and watching Real Housewives. If he wasn’t so high, he’d be really pissed off.

“Dennis,” he complained, rapping his knuckles on the door again. “Come on, baby, I can smell you cooking dinner. I’m so fucking hungry. I’m really gonna—”

The door swung open with his fist still aloft to knock on it again, and Dennis’s smiling face appeared in front of him. Mac paused, staring at him.

“Hi,” said Dennis brightly.

He stepped up and wrapped his arm around Mac’s waist, pulling him in to kiss swiftly in hello before stepping away and letting him in. He kept his arm around Mac’s lower back as he ushered him through the apartment, shutting the door behind them and leading him over to the set table. Even though the kitchen was separate from the living room, the whole apartment a bit larger than Dennis’s one-room place had been, they had still had to set the dining table in the living room for lack of any other space.

“I bought this wine specifically to celebrate our very first _official_ night here together,” said Dennis, pouring them both a generous amount. “And, not to brag, but this sauce has been specially made and the pasta cooked to _perfection_. So.”

Mac glanced around the apartment while Dennis was gloating. He had dimmed the lights, and something soft and romantic was playing on his old stereo too; when Mac left this afternoon, the living room was only half set up but now it was almost completely finished. Granted, most of the shelves were filled up with Dennis’s stuff and Mac was going to have to start a fight tomorrow to make some room for a few of his own possessions, but overall it looked nice filled in. Kind of like a proper home.

“It looks good, Den,” he said, diving straight into his dinner.

Dennis beamed at him across the table.

“I know,” he said smugly, and he glowed as he speared a bunch of noodles on his fork. Mac wouldn’t stop watching him; Dennis kicked him beneath the table, and Mac dropped his eyes but couldn’t stop the faint smile from tugging at his lips.

Dinner was good; they still had half of the wine leftover when they were done, so they brought the bottle over to the couch after they had put their dishes in the sink to deal with later. Dennis commandeered the wine, so Mac grabbed a beer from the fridge, which was mostly filled up with his preferred IPA — some room had been cleared out for Dennis’s pretentious beer, though, along with some space for food and juice.

Mac sat down right in the middle of the couch, intending on forcing Dennis to ease down directly next to him, but Dennis leaned against the arm of the couch instead and laid his legs over Mac’s lap while he turned on one of the Lethal Weapons.

“So is there dessert later, or what?” Mac asked during another good fight scene that he could have choreographed much better.

Dennis shook his head.

“I made dinner, bought you wine, set up the whole living room,” Dennis said in disbelief. “Are you being serious?”

“Yes, I’m being serious!” said Mac. “What kind of shitty wine and dine operation are you running here, man?”

“Um, a pretty fucking good one,” Dennis sneered. “You fucking moved in with me, asshole.”

Mac shook his head.

“You’re terrible at wooing,” he said.

Gaping at him, Dennis dug his heel into the sensitive inside of Mac’s thigh.

“I’m a fantastic wooer! You ungrateful piece of shit,” he accused.

“I can’t believe it, I have to do everything myself,” said Mac. “Whatever. Tomorrow I’m gonna buy some strawberries, I’m gonna pick up some chocolate, and then tomorrow night I’m gonna show you how to _properly_ seduce someone. God. I really have to teach you everything, huh?”

“Mac, you couldn’t seduce a hooker if you had a thousand dollars and a bunch of crack to offer,” Dennis deadpanned.

Mac gaped at him.

“Bitch, I romance you every single day of our lives!”

Dennis snickered, but then he caught sight of Mac’s expression and sobered fast.

“Oh, you weren’t kidding?” he said, sounding so genuine that Mac’s temper started to lick at his heels. “Uh. _What_ in God’s name are you talking about, man?”

“I cook for you, like, all the time!” said Mac.

“One time,” Dennis interrupted. “You cooked for me one time. Most days you just heat up my leftovers or order us takeout—”

“I stole you that really nice watch for your birthday,” Mac said over him, ticking off the points on his fingers. “I mix you those fruity drinks you like, I taught you how to pick up dudes at the bar, I sold my _Jeep_ for you—”

“For _us_ ,” Dennis corrected sharply. “And by the way, none of that is romantic, at all. You’re a slut. You’re just a cheap slut. Do you really not know what romance is? The Jeep thing — well, alright, maybe the overall sentiment was generous, but I wouldn’t exactly call having Charlie blowing a trumpet as you drive two miles an hour down the street _romantic_.”

“Fuck you,” Mac said, drinking more of his beer. “You just don’t know how to appreciate a twenty-first century _classy_ man.”

Dennis was staring at him, eyes wide. When Mac finally tore his gaze away from the TV and turned it on him instead, Dennis was shaking his head.

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis said faintly. Mac snorted.

Dennis slouched down into the couch while the movie played on. Even though they’d both seen it a million times, drinking while they watched always made the plot more interesting anyway. Dennis finished the bottle of wine off and set it on the floor beside them, and Mac got up to fetch the rest of the pack of beer and put it down next to the couch for them to pick at.

They got through nearly half the beer by the time the credits rolled around, and they were both laughing.

“I wanna watch a real comedy,” said Dennis, slamming his last beer down on the coffee table and picking up another. He popped the tab on the can, spraying beer onto the rug. “This sucks. I want something funny!”

“Okay, relax,” said Mac, swiping Dennis’s arms out of the way as he grabbed for the remote. While Mac flipped through the channels, Dennis curled up against his side, which normally he liked but at the moment just meant that Dennis was getting flecks of beer on his lap and making it difficult to aim the remote at the TV sensor. Dennis didn’t seem to mind being in the way at all. Mac said, “Alright, cable officially sucks. What time is it? Oh, that’s why. There’s never anything on this late.”

“Find us something from our movie collection,” said Dennis, shoving him off the couch. “Remember: Something funny.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Mac muttered.

He got up with a big sigh. Dennis had had enough to drink to start getting bossy, directing Mac to the cabinet where he’d stashed their combined cache of movies and loudly vetoing nearly everything he pulled out before they finally settled on Anchorman. Mac threw himself back down onto the couch, crowding Dennis up against the side of it where he was already sitting. Mac kept inching closer until finally Dennis rolled his eyes and wedged his arm behind him, squeezing him around the waist. Mac settled happily against his side, leaning most of his weight on him.

“Huh,” said Dennis, poking him in the side. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not _drunk_ ,” Mac complained, circling his arms around Dennis’s waist and pulling him in tight. He honestly wasn’t; sometimes he thought Dennis just didn’t know how to accept that Mac wanted to wrap himself around him without over-rationalizing it in his own head. Usually it was very simple: There was Dennis, so there would be Mac, pressed to his side like an outside force had stitched them together at the seams.

“Uh huh,” Dennis said, nodding. “Okay, clingy.”

Mac jabbed him in his thigh.

“I have rights,” Mac said stubbornly. “As your roommate and, uh, friend. Sleeping buddy.”

“My _sleeping buddy_?” Dennis repeated with a snort.

“Fuckbuddy, friend with benefits. The guy who gives it up to you on the reg. Whatever!” said Mac. “The point is, I get to do what I want whether you feel like it or not.”

Dennis sighed. “I do always say that.”

Mac slumped down even further, pillowing his head on Dennis’s lap and nestling close. Dennis shook his head, but his fingers still fell to rake through Mac’s hair. Mac nudged into the touch.

Anchorman got boring after a few more beers and Mac pushed himself up, still leaning into Dennis’s space. Dennis didn’t look away from the movie. Mac inched closer.

“Hey Dennis.”

When he turned toward him, eyes still fixed on the TV, Mac clasped the side of his neck in one hand and kissed him. Dennis took a second to switch gears, but with Mac’s coaxing and how he started rubbing his thumb gently against his cheek, Dennis quickly gave into the pressure of his mouth and pulled him in closer around the waist.

There was still something heady about hearing Dennis’s little inhale up close, something that shot a hot burst of feeling down through Mac’s blood. He tilted his head to press their mouths together from a different angle, fingers sliding back to grip tighter in his hair. His free hand slipped down Dennis’s chest, and over his waist, and settled for balance on the outside of his thigh. Mac squeezed him softly; Dennis murmured out a contented sound and curled closer.

He tasted like a mix of pasta sauce and wine and cheap beer, a combination that wasn’t entirely unpleasant but maybe just because Mac happened to be sucking it off Dennis’s tongue. The TV was white noise in the background, almost entirely ignorable but just distracting enough to keep snagging the corners of Mac’s attention and stop him from losing himself entirely in Dennis’s mouth — it was a good thing, really, keeping him tethered to the precipice of being in the present, making everything feel sharp and real.

Slowly Dennis started kissing him less deeply, easing them down into a warmer, all-encompassing feeling. His hands spread out across Mac’s back, pulling him in. Mac eased his grip on Dennis’s hair, his other hand rubbing circles into the side of his thigh with his thumb. They paused for a split second to inhale and Dennis paused, lips hovering right before meeting Mac’s again, and Mac’s breath caught; then Dennis melted into him and closed the scant distance. Mac’s tongue ghosted along his lower lip, already hungry for it.

“Hold on a second.”

It came out mumbled against Mac’s lips. He ignored it, trying to push in and keep kissing him until he would inevitably give in and accept Mac climbing into his lap, but instead Dennis anchored his fingers around Mac’s chin and pressed him back.

“Mac, come on,” he sighed, as Mac dropped his head to nose along Dennis’s collar. “Hold up for one second—”

Mac’s fingers crept along his waist. Dennis batted those away too.

“Wait a sec, hold on,” he said firmly. “I wanna talk to you about something.”

Mac threw himself against the armrest with a groan, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling.

“ _No_! That sounds _so_ boring,” he said, tilting his head around to glare at him.

“I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet,” Dennis said, offended. “Dude—”

“Well, whatever it is, is it better than having sex with me?” Mac demanded.

“I…Well, no—”

“That’s what I thought!” Mac hefted himself up to push his hands underneath Dennis’s shirt, scratching at his abs the way he liked. Dennis sighed, his fingers touching down lightly on Mac’s arms. Mac dipped his face closer to press his mouth against his cheek. “So let’s not do this right now, come on baby, I wanna go to bed…Let’s just—”

Dennis grabbed his wrists and pushed them down into his lap, away from his torso, wrapping his hands around Mac’s and squeezing to keep them from wandering any more. He pushed him back by the chest with his forearm and Mac leaned away with a huff.

“Dennis…”

“See, now, that’s actually what I wanted to talk about.” Dennis’s tone was frustratingly calm and unwavering. “I think…maybe…we need some ground rules, now that we’re gonna be living together.”

Mac’s glare dissolved at once, melting cleanly into a furrowed brow instead. He pulled his hands away from Dennis’s and twisted them together. From under his lashes, he glanced up at him.

“What do you mean?” he asked, worrying his lower lip in his teeth. “Like, you don’t wanna sleep with me anymore?”

He looked at Dennis with big eyes, and almost immediately Dennis was moving in closer to him until their thighs touched again, and he pushed a hand across Mac’s cheek. His fingers curled in behind his ear.

“No, no, no. Baby, no,” he said. Mac’s hands relaxed a little on his lap. Tentatively, he reached out and touched Dennis’s knee. “I was just thinking, like…It’s like, we got two bedrooms for a reason, right? So we should use them.”

Mac frowned. “You wanna hump in both beds?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dennis sighed, his brows pulling together irritably. “Look, man. I’m glad we’re hanging out and, like…you know, whatever we’re doing, but we bought this place as friends! So I think maybe we need some rules so we don’t, like, cross the line or anything.”

“Oh, okay,” Mac said slowly. He frowned, thinking this over. “You wanna preserve the friendship in case things go south with banging each other?”

“Please stop talking about it like that,” said Dennis. “But yes.”

“I get it. Sweet,” said Mac. He nodded, his expression easing somewhat. “So…What kind of thing were you…What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Well, I was thinking it might be a good idea if we didn’t stay the night with each other,” said Dennis. “That’s exactly the kind of thing that might blur the lines, do you get me?”

“Okay…” he said. “Then we probably shouldn’t hook up all the time either, right? Since this is just an apartment between friends, we shouldn’t, like, jump each other all the time when we’re just hanging around?”

He cocked his head, watching Dennis carefully for a reaction. He wasn’t entirely sure where friends who spent every waking moment together ended and two friends who slept together began, but apparently, there was a line. Dennis certainly seemed able to see it — or draw it, anyway, which Mac guessed was the same thing in this situation.

“Um…Yeah, I guess,” said Dennis. “Look, let’s not get bogged down in the details or anything, you know? We don’t have to make a calendar with what days you can kiss me. We should just, you know…Keep it in mind.”

“Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.”

Mac nodded. In truth he still didn’t really understand when it would be okay to be with him or not, but that was clearly the response Dennis wanted. Mac glanced up at him, but Dennis was fiddling with a thread on the couch and biting his lip, not looking at him. Mac swallowed, his mouth twisting.

“Um…Dennis?”

He looked up, his forehead smoothing out as he caught Mac’s eye. “Yeah, Mac?”

“Can we go back to kissing now?”

Dennis split into a smile. “Yeah, buddy. Yeah we can.”

“Cool,” said Mac. He was already halfway into cupping the back of Dennis’s neck and pulling him closer. Dennis was already in his space again, pushing his mouth to Mac’s and sighing.

Dennis planted his hands on either side of Mac’s hips, leaning over to him to get nearer as Mac wound his arms around Dennis’s neck. Dennis pushed him back into the armrest and Mac sighed, rearranging their legs until their thighs fell together.

“Turn off the TV,” he mumbled against Dennis’s mouth after a while. He didn’t stop kissing him long enough to look, but he heard him fumbling around on the coffee table beside them. Mac pressed his grin into Dennis’s neck. “Den. The TV.”

“I’m working on it,” he gritted out. “Damn it.”

The remote skidded off the table to the floor. Dennis leaned as far off the couch as he could to reach for it, and Mac sighed, running his fingers along Dennis’s back and arms aimlessly.

“Dennis…”

“Damn it!”

Dennis rolled off him to dig it out from under the table, and Mac followed him up off the couch. Dennis barely shut the TV and put the remote down before Mac grabbed him around the middle and pulled him back in with a hand on his cheek. Dennis seemed surprised to find him standing there, but he went loose and easy in his arms, and Mac squeezed him tighter. He was smiling as Dennis leaned in to capture his mouth again.

It was gentle at first; Dennis folded his arms around Mac’s neck, fingers toying with his hair and winding strands around as far as they would go. Mac ran his knuckles across Dennis’s ribs, making him shiver and lean his body closer; Mac tipped his head the other way to press more soft kisses to his mouth and slid his palms down to his waist, holding him steady. He caught Dennis’s lip between his own, sucking with a little more pressure than they had been using, until the insistent push of Dennis’s tongue curling against his own forced him to stop. He slotted their mouths together, tightening his hold on Dennis’s waist.

Dennis’s lips brushed across his cheek. He hesitated near Mac’s ear like he was going to say something but instead cupped Mac’s cheeks in his hands and tugged him back in against his mouth. Mac’s arms slid around to encircle his waist, his hold tight and firm without being suffocating. Dennis’s fingers trailed down to brush his neck and linger around his collar. Mac made a quiet noise, as much as he could with Dennis demanding all his breath.

Mac traced along his hips with his fingertips, pushing up just underneath his t-shirt. Bare contact with his skin always made Dennis either go boneless or look at him with something both indefinable and utterly enchanting on his face; Mac lapped it up. He couldn’t describe it but whatever it was, he wanted more. He wanted all of it.

Dennis inched even closer. Their bodies already pressed together from chest to thigh, all he really succeeded in doing was insinuating one of his feet partway between Mac’s own. Mac smiled when Dennis pushed back into their next kiss.

“Come on,” Mac murmured, nudging their noses together. “Come lay down with me.”

“That’s a bad line, dude,” said Dennis, but he grinned anyway as his fingers tightened on Mac’s back and he tilted his face up to meet his next kiss. “It’s so obvious.”

It was still a yes, though, as they found their way into Dennis’s new bedroom and toppled down together on his sheets. Mac didn’t have time to look around. Dennis tugged Mac’s thigh over his hips and laughed, breathless, against his mouth.

He pressed Dennis down into the sheets as he kissed him, nice and slow, until Dennis shuddered out, “ _Baby_ ,” and reached down between them to grab at him between the legs. Dennis turned them over slowly until he was the one hovering on top, and Mac’s fingers scratched at the back of his head as he held him.

They wrestled off each other’s clothes, rolling around more on the sheets trying to get them all off without stopping kissing. Mac wouldn’t unwind his arms from Dennis’s neck long enough to take off his shirt until Dennis pinned his wrists with a playful snarl, and Mac finally begged for mercy and stripped it off himself.

Dennis stroked his sides, kissed his neck, whispered pretty things in his ear as his hand worked over him tight and hot. His hips rocked gently into Mac’s thigh. Mac pulled him down to kiss hard as he came, moaning lowly into Dennis’s mouth and then turning them over to kiss his way down his body to get him off too.

Afterwards he curled against Dennis’s side, an arm tight around his waist while he nosed at the side of his neck. Dennis trailed a finger down Mac’s spine, and Mac shivered closer to him, mumbling his name. He nudged his calf between Dennis’s, hooking their ankles. A moment later he felt Dennis bend to brush his lips against his hair.

It took Mac a very long while to unwind his arm from Dennis and start to push himself up. Dennis, who had been tracing absent patterns across his back, sat up too and looked at him with a frown.

“I should, um…” Mac jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Dennis’s watched him in open curiosity. “I should get back to my room, then.”

Dennis’s brow furrowed.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m like, really tired,” said Mac, watching him with careful, big eyes, “and if I stay here any longer I’m gonna pass out…”

“No, no. I mean, yeah, go.” Dennis pulled the sheets into a pile on his lap, clutching at them. “You should go.”

Mac hesitated. He reached out and pushed some of Dennis’s sweaty hair off his forehead, and Dennis finally relaxed out of a frown and sighed.

“Go,” he said again, softer, but he pulled Mac’s hand closer to plant a kiss on his palm. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mac could feel eyes on his back as he bent to pull his underwear and shirt back on and gather up his discarded jeans. He got himself together with slow, clumsy movements, not in any hurry to drag himself out of the comfortable stuffiness of Dennis’s bedroom. Quickly he was out of excuses to linger; he paused at the door, barely turning to look back.

“Night, Dennis,” he murmured.

Dennis didn’t say anything, and he shut the door behind him.

His bed was cold and his room darker, somehow, than Dennis’s had been even though neither of them had flicked on a light. Mac nestled beneath his comforter. The new bed was warm — the mattress they had picked up earlier was very comfortable, and his sheets were clean and freshly bought too — but Mac couldn’t sleep. He ended up staring at the ceiling for a long time instead, his thoughts swirling around too much to settle, and his mind returning again and again to the look on Dennis’s face when he’d gotten up to go.

Eventually Mac turned over, tugging his covers up around him, and finally went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a couple more chapters left!!! one or two and then we're all wrapped up....thank u so much for sticking with this for so long, i love all of you. we're almost at the finish line or some sports metaphor like that. idk i'm gay i don't have to know that shit.
> 
> [lesbianfreyja on tumblr](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/183612515765) xo


	11. your hands on my cheeks, your shoulder in my mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis came into the room fully and shut the door behind him. Before Mac could ask what he was doing again, Dennis collapsed face-first onto his bed. Mac stared down at him, several questions on his tongue and just trying to sort out which one he should ask first. While he was still deciding on which one to start with, Dennis wriggled around until he burrowed himself beneath the covers with Mac.
> 
> “Hi,” he said, looking up at Mac with big eyes and a tiny smile.
> 
> “Come on, dude! You just come in here and wanna sleep in my bed, after you…After we, like…” He shook his head, hands bunching into fists and relaxing again. "It was your rules, dude. So maybe we should talk about it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for dennis being a manipulative bastard, mac being an idiotic asshole, and me knowing absolutely jack shit about working out

Mac traced his index finger down Dennis’s spine. He watched in satisfaction when Dennis arched his back, squirming closer to him underneath the covers. Dennis nosed at his cheek for a moment before pulling back, and Mac turned to bury his face in Dennis’s neck. He pressed his mouth all along his throat.

“If this is your way of trying to distract me, it isn’t going to work,” Dennis said.

“I’m not trying to do anything,” said Mac.

He darted up to kiss him on the mouth, and it was meant to be fast and over with but Dennis reached to curl his fingers through Mac’s hair, and Mac ended up slinging a thigh over Dennis’s and melting up against his body. Dennis thumbed at his lips when Mac paused to breathe, humming quietly.

“You still have to take out the garbage tomorrow,” said Dennis eventually, “and do the dishes.”

“Mhmm,” Mac agreed, even though he had absolutely no intention of doing it.

He yanked Dennis closer by the waist, who just grinned and put a hand on Mac’s arm to steady himself. When they laid this close together on their sides like this, they had to share a pillow. Mac, graciously he thought, made room for him on his.

“I’ve done them every single night since our dishwasher broke,” Dennis complained, “so now it’s your turn. Come on, maintenance won’t come for another week and I’m getting really sick and tired of scraping shit off your plate. I don’t know what you’re doing to them, man, but it’s disgusting.”

“Dennis! Okay, man? I said I’ll do it.”

Dennis’s eyes narrowed. Barely five inches away from him and bare ass naked, it wasn’t very threatening.

“Yeah, and I know what you sound like when you’re lying,” he said.

Mac grunted at him, in response to which Dennis pushed him onto his back and curled up with his head on Mac’s chest. Without thinking about it, Mac looped an arm around his middle and pulled him in so they were tucked right up against one another. He didn’t want to sleep just yet, but he didn’t stop Dennis from closing his eyes and relaxing against him. Mac rubbed idly at his back with one hand, flipping through an autobody magazine on his bedside table with the other. Every now and then, Dennis stirred with the turning of the pages.

After a while Dennis muttered, “Can you turn your light off or something, man? Fuck,” without opening his eyes. Mac shushed him and reached to flip off the lamp beside his bed, even though doing so meant he could no longer see his magazine; Dennis clutched at his chest, murmuring unintelligibly, when Mac stretched away from him. Mac turned over onto his side, earning himself some more complaints from Dennis, and nestled into his pillow. He waited until Dennis turned away from him in a huff to wrap his arms around him and pull him back against his body. Dennis squirmed into a more comfortable position with his brows drawn together like he was angry and restless for the interruption in falling asleep.

Mac was only up for a couple of more minutes, but he spent them memorizing how Dennis’s body fit up against his and thinking that if he could get any closer, he would do it without hesitation.

 

Dennis laid his forehead against Mac’s temple, watching his finger swirl in senseless patterns across one of Mac’s pecs. Mac tightened the arm around his back, looking at Dennis look at his hand.

“Do you think I need to start doing more routines at the gym?” Mac asked.

Dennis’s gaze flickered up to his. “What?”

“I don’t think I’m working out my abs enough,” said Mac. He poked at Dennis’s stomach, even though he recoiled after the first jab. “How do you look like that? What’s your routine?”

“I don’t have a routine. It’s called cardio,” said Dennis. When swatting away Mac’s probing hand didn’t work, Dennis caught it in his own and trapped it against Mac’s chest. “Maybe if you stopped skipping leg day—”

“Hey, you watch it. My ass doesn’t _quit_.”

Dennis laughed, and Mac scowled even harder. Dennis released his hand to press his palm to Mac’s cheek and angle his face in to kiss his pouting mouth.

“I know. I know,” Dennis murmured, still kissing him even though Mac wouldn’t yield. With a grin, Dennis reached down and grabbed at his ass as best he could with Mac flat on his back, and Mac finally broke out laughing too. Dennis pulled him in by the cheek again and this time Mac surrendered to his mouth.

Mac flexed the arm around his back, and Dennis got the hint — he crawled further into Mac’s lap the longer that they kissed, insinuating himself right between Mac’s thighs. Mac cradled the back of his head and ran his hand across his back, until eventually they settled down, noses brushing as they pulled away from each other. Dennis nestled against Mac’s collar.

“Do you mind if I sleep here?” he asked.

Mac pressed his lips together, gaze darting around the room over his shoulder.

“Um, kind of. You’re crushing me, sweetheart.”

“Am I?” Dennis asked innocently. “But it’s so comfortable here.”

He wriggled around, slouching a little bit down the bed and slipping his hands under Mac’s shoulders, clutching loosely at him.

“Den…Come on. I should—”

“Do you mind if I just go to sleep like this?” said Dennis, shutting his eyes tightly. “Just…fall asleep…right here…”

“Dennis.” Mac pushed at his side. “I need to get up, I need to get ready for bed, and I should go back to my r—”

Dennis hung open his mouth and gave a very loud fake snore. Mac prodded him harder between the ribs. Dennis paused his façade to snort out a laugh, though he quickly stifled it and went back to pretending to sleep.

“So comfy…So tired…Mac…baby…”

“You’re killing me,” Mac declared. He waved his arms around, starting to gasp shallowly. “Oh, my God, you’re crushing me! You’re crushing my lungs and I’m gonna die here! Tell Dennis…I always…hated him…”

Dennis broke down laughing and rolled off of him finally, although he didn’t go very far and still tucked himself in against Mac’s side. Mac stopped flailing his hands around so much and started chuckling too, and when Dennis wrapped an arm around Mac’s waist and tugged him close, Mac turned onto his side and buried himself in Dennis’s neck. Dennis dropped a kiss against his bare shoulder and tucked his face into Mac’s hair.

“Goodnight, you big dummy,” said Dennis, squeezing him tighter.

Mac jabbed at his ribs again.

“ _You’re_ the dumbass,” he muttered.

Dennis’s hand settled down low on his back, big and warm spread out across his spine. Sleep was very easy after that.

 

Mac sat up to watch Dennis as he swung his feet to the floor and started rooting around on the floor. Usually this was the part where Dennis got dressed and went back to his own bed, except they were already in Dennis’s room.

“What are you doing?” said Mac, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“Um, what does it look like I’m doing, asshole?” said Dennis. “It’s cold in here.”

He pulled on the sweatpants he’d been wearing earlier, shimmying them up over his ass, and threw himself back onto his side. Mac started to shift out from under the covers, but Dennis reached out and scratched at his thigh before he could go very far.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

When Mac turned around, Dennis was frowning up at him. Mac paused.

“I’m, uh—” he faltered, then cleared his throat. “I’m just grabbing my shirt. You were right, it’s cold.”

“Oh.”

But Dennis stayed propped up on one elbow, watching him carefully; Mac could feel eyes on his back when he shrugged his t-shirt back on and tugged his boxers up over his hips. Dennis didn’t lay back down until Mac turned onto his side and lifted up one of his arms, and Dennis rolled over to fit his back snugly up against Mac’s chest. They both shifted, getting more comfortable pressed together.

Dennis grabbed his top sheet and pulled it up over them both. Mac hugged him tighter around the middle.

Being close to Dennis like this, before they went to sleep, made a few things difficult to ignore.

The first was that he wasn’t supposed to be here. By their own agreement — the one that Dennis originally proposed — they were both supposed to return to their separate beds when they were done fucking or arguing or holding each other or however it was that they spent their night, each option equally plausible as the last; but really, Mac only slept alone about half the time. Some nights Dennis curled up on him so he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. When they ended the night in Mac’s room, Dennis often looked so comfortable that Mac found himself unwilling to kick him out of his bed, even though it sometimes started an argument in the morning. The fact that Dennis could leave himself hardly mattered; he always got annoyed that Mac didn’t have the balls to make him, as though Mac were the one breaking their agreement in the first place. The nights he slept alone, Dennis seemed to sleep poorly. Mac stayed up later and slept in the same, but Dennis always looked extra tired those mornings, the bags under his eyes more pronounced. He seemed both pleased with himself and irritable all day too, proud but frustrated, and he usually wouldn’t let Mac in to mess around later that night. Sharing beds with Dennis had somehow turned into a dangerous game, and no matter what he did, he might always end up losing just because he didn’t understand the rules.

The second thing he couldn’t ignore was how much he liked falling asleep like this, lying curved around Dennis’s bare back with their feet tangled together underneath the sheets. Dennis smelled like his body wash mingled with sweat, but Mac didn’t really mind that either. After Dennis got back from the gym, he smelled pretty much just the same, but Mac didn’t like it then; this was different, when he was like this because they had lain together less than an hour ago, when it was because Mac had made him moan and sigh and cum. Besides, even if Mac found him gross, it would have been worth staying for the way Dennis sighed sleepily and folded his arms over Mac’s on his chest, keeping him trapped like Dennis never wanted him to go.

Mac nosed at his hair and laid a kiss against the back of his neck. Dennis stirred, making him freeze, but Dennis took a long time to find his voice.

“Go to sleep, man. Fuck.”

Mac nestled closer, keeping his grin all to himself, and did.

 

Mac swung their joined hands between them idly as they made their way very slowly down the street. It was a little bit chilly and he wanted to get to work soon, if only so that he could envelop himself in the bar’s heating, but Dennis seemed content to take his time on the way there. They’d stopped for coffee a few shops down and Dennis sipped at his hot chocolate with his free hand, gesturing toward one of the windows as they passed it.

“Remind me to come back here later,” he said.

“Huh? Why?”

“Do you see that shirt in there?” said Dennis, pointing aggressively at a button-up that looked exactly like every other blue button-up that he owned. “Don’t you think that would look great on me?”

“You look great in everything, Dennis,” he said honestly.

Dennis’s cheeks flushed, and Mac didn’t think it was from the cold. He grinned into the last sips of his coffee and then tossed it toward a nearby trash can, missing completely.

“Oh, come on,” Dennis complained. “At least pretend like you don’t want the earth to die before we’re forty.”

“ _Relax_ ,” Mac said, rolling his eyes. “Dennis, come on—”

But Dennis pulled his hand out of Mac’s and went to fetch the coffee cup rolling its way out into the street. Mac made a mental note to stop letting Dennis stay up and watching nature movies when he was stoned, because he was seriously climbing up Mac’s ass about littering lately. He had this idea in his head that the planet was dying rapidly and he was going to be the savior of the Earth, and everyone would remember his name forever for all the good deeds he was doing, and Mac knew all that was totally stupid. He’d acquiesced to going to some atrocious locally-owned coffee shop when all he really wanted was Dunkin’, he didn’t see why that wasn’t good enough.

“Mac,” Dennis sighed, throwing the cup out properly and returning to his side, “you _really_ have got to start caring more—”

“I don’t see why you’re being such a bitch about this,” said Mac, slipping his hand back into Dennis’s as they began walking again and using the other to shield his eyes from the bright autumn sun.

“Because unlike some people, I _care_ about making the earth inhabitable for generations to come.”

“No you don’t,” said Mac, laughing. “You just want people to remember your name and suck your dick when they talk about you in history class or whatever. It’s an ego trip.”

“Shut your mouth,” said Dennis. “At least I have principles.”

“Uh, I don’t think those count for shit with the Big Guy, dude. He cares about, like, the _reasons_ that you do what you do.”

“Oh yeah?” Dennis raised his eyebrows. “Then I’ll see you in Hell.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Mac. “I’m going straight up, baby. I’ll remember you fondly, though.”

Dennis scoffed. “You think you’re better than me? You think you’ve got good reasons for the dumb shit you do?”

“Hell yes!”

“Last week you hotwired Dee’s car to drunk drive us to the movies,” said Dennis. “What was the holy reason for that?”

“Having fun and treating you to a night out,” said Mac, grinning proudly. “God likes that. Respect thy neighbor and, um, love yourself.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. “Right.”

Mac pushed open the door to the bar ahead of him, letting Dennis through first. Dennis dropped his hand to circle the counter, and he started stacking glasses while Mac drifted toward the back office to see if Charlie had come in yet. Before he reached it, the door swung open and both Charlie and Dee came trotting out, arguing about something that sounded related to who broke the computer, but they stopped when they saw Mac and Dennis.

“Hey, jerkoffs,” said Dee, nodding at them. She joined Dennis behind the counter. “What took you guys so long?”

“What do you mean? It’s not even noon,” said Mac.

“We got here two hours ago,” said Charlie.

“Yeah,” Dee agreed. She smirked. “What, Mac, did Dennis tie the knots too tight? I assume he’s keeping you chained up in his secret torture room, and that’s why you’ve stayed with him for this long. It’s not willingly. Right?”

“Dennis prefers when I tie him up,” said Mac. He reached over the counter to dig around in the plastic bin where they kept their array of nuts, limes, cherries, and the like.

Dennis choked. Dee blinked rapidly at him, her eyes huge.

“I’m…Um,” said Dee. “That’s…so gross. Ew. Ew, ew, ew. I don’t…Ew.”

“It’s not _gross_ , Dee,” Mac said exasperatedly, “sometimes it’s the only way we like t—”

“A-and, and we don’t,” Dennis shouted over him, his cheeks deeply red, “we don’t share a bed, Dee. If you’ll remember, you helped us move our shit into _two_ different bedrooms.”

Dee gave a little shrug.

“Jesus, whatever,” she mumbled. “I was just kidding.”

“Although, I will say that you _are_ both objecting a _lot_ ,” said Charlie. He raised his eyebrows, smiling. “Like, it’s suspicious. Huh? What are you hiding?”

“Yeah,” Dee laughed. “Right? Doth protest too much, much?”

“Shut up,” Dennis said, scowling deeply. “Mac had church and then we stopped for coffee on the way over. God.”

He looked over at Mac. Mac hurried to clear his throat.

“Um, right,” he said. “Right, we don’t…Yeah.”

The truth was that they _had_ gone to bed separately last night, after dinner and a couple episodes of a show they were catching up on together. They bid each other goodnight — they didn’t always kiss before they said it, but they did tonight — and went to bed. Mac showered and turned off the lights, but he was still up playing on an old Gameboy, dark green and partially see-through. Mac had unearthed it from a pile of long-forgotten junk in his parents’ house when he was moving into the new apartment. He would never have been able to afford one, obviously, but Dennis had bought himself one for Christmas one year when he was a teenager. Mostly he had used it to play Smurfs and some game that was basically a Tamagotchi but with dogs. When he’d gotten bored with it, he gave it to Mac. Mac had spent several months trying to collect all the Pokémon in the red version until he got to the end and realized he’d used his Master Ball on a Snorlax way early on and was shit out of luck for the Mewtwo. To frustrated to start all over, he’d thrown the Gameboy in a stack of forgotten toys in the basement and forgotten all about it.

His door creaked open just as he was leaving Pewter City, and he rolled over onto his back and looked up.

“Hey,” said Mac. He pushed himself up with one hand. “What’s up?”

Dennis edged his way into the room. Mac paused and saved his game, shutting it off and leaving it on his dresser.

“You’re still awake?” Dennis asked, still halfway out the door.

“Yeah,” said Mac. He gestured vaguely at the Gameboy. “I was playing—”

“Oh, cool.”

Dennis came into the room fully and shut the door behind him. Before Mac could ask what he was doing again, Dennis collapsed face-first onto his bed. Mac stared down at him, several questions on his tongue and just trying to sort out which one he should ask first; while he was still deciding on where to start, Dennis wriggled around until he burrowed himself beneath the covers with Mac. He pulled the sheets up over his shoulder. Mac squirmed a little down the bed, still very confused, and Dennis pulled himself closer to him, wrapping an arm over his waist and nestling into his shoulder.

He blinked up at Mac with big eyes and a tiny smile.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Mac. He decided this was very endearing after all and laughed a little, brushing fingers through Dennis’s hair. Dennis closed his eyes, looking happy. “What are you doing, bro?”

Dennis dipped his forehead down against the side of Mac’s cheek.

“I’m going to sleep,” he said. His eyes peeked open. “That okay?”

“Yeah, of course it’s okay,” said Mac. He wrapped an arm around Dennis’s back instinctively.

They lay still for a few minutes. Dennis shifted every and again, usually to insinuate himself closer to Mac in some way, occasionally to sprawl more entirely across his side of the bed. Mac stayed up staring at the opposite wall in the dark, mind turning over.

“Actually,” he said.

He pulled his arm out from around Dennis, sitting up straighter. Dennis’s eyes blinked up at him, a scowl already firmly set on his mouth. He didn’t move for a long minute, as though laying there trapping Mac down by the waist might stop whatever was happening from happening. Dennis clutched at his hip, but Mac pushed his hand off with a grunt. At last Dennis sat up too, scowling, and turned to face Mac, clumsily crossing his legs beneath the sheets.

“What?” said Dennis. “I was just about to fall asleep, man.”

“Dude,” Mac sighed.

“No!” said Dennis. Mac startled, sitting up straighter and blinking at him. Dennis brandished a finger at him. “No! No! Do not _‘dude’_ me, Mac, do _not_ —”

Mac held both of his hands up at the accusation like he was showing Dennis that he didn’t have a weapon. Dennis’s eyes were so big, his cheeks turning pinker by the second. His breathing was slow, not at all like he sounded right before he screamed or stormed out or had a panic attack, but something big and angry was twisted through his expression that had the same kind of intensity.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say yet!” said Mac. “Christ.”

“Well, whatever it is, I don’t like it,” Dennis said firmly. He crossed his arms, but the fierce look didn’t leave his eye. “Mac, can we — Goddamn it. _Please_ can we just go to sleep? Mac?”

He scooted a little closer to him on the bed, until his knee bumped up against the outside of Mac’s thigh. Mac rolled his eyes.

“Dennis…”

Dennis’s lower lip jutted out by degrees. He fumbled for Mac’s hand and tugged it between both of his own. Mac pulled on it, yanking himself free and crossing his arms. They stared at each other for a terse minute, Mac’s sloped brow against Dennis’s scowl. Mac’s nose edged higher into the air. Dennis squinted at him, some of the ferocity tensing up his shoulders easing out as he assessed Mac’s level of sincerity.

Finally he seemed to decide that he was not going to come out on top. Dennis sighed, back curving as he slumped down. He had a lot less artifice lacing his body when he pushed his palm across Mac’s thigh, his fingers curling and nails digging in. Mac dropped his arms. He loosely circled Dennis’s wrist with two fingers, not pushing him off but not letting him move any farther up his leg, either.

“Mac,” he insisted, quieter.

Dennis nestled in closer to him, looping one of his arms through Mac’s and turning onto his side to press himself up against him. Mac didn’t relent to the weight of him, exactly, but he didn’t go cold against him either. Dennis leaned up quickly, palm against Mac’s cheek, and caught him in a sharp kiss. Without thinking, Mac doubled the pressure back on him.

Their mouths moved rough against one another for a long minute before Dennis rolled over onto his back, tugging Mac along with him. Mac settled in between his legs. Dennis gave a breathless noise, his thighs spreading out around Mac’s hips.

Mac made himself at home between Dennis’s legs, not thinking about it for even a second as he pushed them further apart with one hand and sunk his body down. Dennis licked into his mouth. His hand roamed; he smoothed it out across Mac’s shoulders, kneading in against his spine, and traced a fingernail across his exposed hipbone where his shirt had ridden up before reaching behind him and grabbing a thick handful of his ass. Mac shifted up closer to him, cock brushing up between Dennis’s legs as he did. Dennis gave a full-body shudder and Mac pulled back all at once, hunkering back on his heels.

“Fuck!” he mumbled. “Fuck, shit. Fuck.”

Mac rubbed at his temple with one hand. His eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them again, Dennis had pushed himself up, legs still spread around Mac’s hips but his brows drawing in as he watched Mac intently.

“What?” he asked, one hand already reaching to run over Mac’s bicep. He wrapped his hand around his arm, squeezing. “Baby. What?” he added, thumb rubbing circles against his tattoo, and laughing a little, “Use your words, you dumb idiot.”

“I just, I’m…” He shook his head, hands bunching into fists and relaxing again, “Like, come on, dude! You just come in here and wanna sleep in my bed, after you…After we, like…”

He struggled to come up with an articulate end to that sentence. He wasn’t really any good with _words_ , was the issue, and usually Dennis jumped in to save him because usually they were on the same page, but all that made it very difficult to disagree with him coherently.

“And now you’re coming in here, and kissing me, and scrambling me up and making me all confused—”

But Dennis was shushing him already, scooting down the bed to get closer and spreading his thighs out more to accommodate Mac’s hips. Dennis touched his cheek and Mac sighed, pouting at him, at least until Dennis ran a thumb over his bottom lip.

“It’s not a big deal, Mac,” he insisted, the smooth slide of his finger annoyingly and distractingly hypnotic.

“But…It was your rules, dude,” said Mac, struggling to stay on task. “So maybe we should talk about—”

“Hey, hey. Hey…” Dennis pushed his palm back until his thumb rubbed circles into Mac’s cheek instead. Mac swayed closer on instinct. “Look. What’s the fun of life if we don’t break a few rules? Right?”

“But…”

Mac’s fingers scrunched in his bedsheets, and he watched them twist them up. Dimly, he felt as though he was definitely still supposed to be arguing but he couldn’t quite remember what about; he thought he was supposed to be mad at Dennis but he didn’t know what for. Dennis’s hands settled on his arms, stroking slow and comforting.

“Mac, seriously,” he whispered, smoothing his fingers across Mac’s jaw. “I wanna be here. Okay?”

Mac gazed at him in the dark. Dennis closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against Mac’s. Mac’s hands hesitantly landed on his shoulders, and he kept them perched there for a long time before finally exhaling and sliding them down Dennis’s arms.

When Dennis wrapped his arms around Mac’s waist, pulling on him, Mac laid down with him, still a little bit confused about the rules but overall without any fight.

Dennis nestled a cheek against Mac’s shoulder, smiling in satisfaction. Mac frowned at the wall over his head but wrapped his arms around Dennis’s back anyway, managing to grab some of the blanket and pull it up over them both. When Dennis’s legs started to snake between his, Mac readjusted to help tangle them together. Dennis snuggled closer. After a moment he propped his chin in Dennis’s hair and closed his eyes.

Behind the bar, Sweet Dee scoffed and cracked open a beer for herself. Mac turned away from Dennis’s offended expression to glare at her.

“Whatever,” she said. “Now that you’re _finally_ here, can one of you help me move a keg up from the basement? Charlie tried but now he’s saying he stubbed his toe and can’t walk on it.”

“Just you wait and see,” Charlie said, brandishing a finger, “when they have to chop my foot off to stop it from getting infected, you’re gonna feel _pretty_ dumb for making fun of me in my time of need.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Dee. “You are straight up a dumb idiot.”

Tuning out their bickering, Mac slid a glance back over toward Dennis, who was nursing a beer too. His eyes narrowed when they met Mac’s.

“Thanks for the convincing backup, dick,” he muttered.

Mac frowned, opening his mouth to protest. Before he could, Dennis shook his head and walked away, disappearing into the basement, presumably to grab the keg for Dee.

His mood would blow over before he got back upstairs, Mac reasoned. He grimaced and started picking at some scratched wood on the bar.

Dennis was still mad when he returned, and he didn’t kiss Mac for six more hours. It was the worst beginning to a shift here that he’d ever had, easy.

 

Mac lounged in his seat, arms spread out across the back of the booth. Dennis stood up at the bar chatting with someone while he waited on their next round of drinks, and Mac wasn’t exactly keeping on eye on him or anything, but he was definitely watching.

Beside him, Dee loudly slurped up the remnants of her vodka soda and gave a belch.

“Oh, shit,” she mumbled, slamming her glass down on the table. “That was real strong at the end there. Whew.”

“Yeah,” said Mac. He finally took his eyes off of Dennis so that he could roll them before settling on Dee. “That always happens but you never learn.”

“Whatever, dickhead.” Dee looked across the room, pouting slightly. “What is taking Dennis so long? I thought we specifically sent him over there early so he’d be back before we finished this round.”

Mac ignored her, even though that question was probably directed at him. His attention had shifted back to Dennis again now that she brought him up, and he watched sharply as Dennis slid his hand down the upper arm of the guy he was talking to and threw his head back to laugh. Something deep in Mac’s gut simmered.

“Oh, it’s not his fault,” said Charlie from her other side. “The service here is slow as shit.”

“It’s terrible customer service,” said Dee.

“Yeah, the bartenders are always off getting in each other’s business when there are people up there,” Charlie agreed. “I mean, who does that? I’m thirsty over here!”

Dee nodded. “It’s so unprofessional.”

“Why do we keep coming here?”

“Mac likes it,” said Dee, jerking her chin at him. She shrugged one shoulder. “So do I. Best prices of any gay bar in the city. I mean, except for us.”

“Hell yeah.”

Charlie raised the remnants of his beer to clink with her, but she was empty. He got mad that it was bad luck not to toast, and Dee swiped the ends of Mac’s whiskey sour to appease him. Mac wasn’t paying enough attention to stop her and didn’t care to complain.

Up at the bar, Dennis got slid a tray of their drinks. He winked at his conversation partner and wound his way back over to the others. Setting the tray down on the table, he started sorting out who had ordered what, putting their drinks down in front of them. Mac looked on silently. Dennis caught his eye for half a second as he gave him a new glass, but he seemed distracted and looked away again right after. Slipping his hand through the handle of his fresh mug of beer, Dennis scooted back into his seat beside Mac. He pressed himself right up against his side. When he leaned in, Mac automatically kissed him back.

He faltered a second, though, before really getting into it, and then it was too late and Dennis was pulling away. That simmering in his stomach was growing, undefinable but resolutely climbing up toward his chest. Mac crossed his arms and cleared his throat, looking around the table.

“So,” he said, overly-loud. The others all turned toward him, and he cast around for an end to that sentence. “Who feels like dancing?”

“Oh, I do!” said Dee at once, putting her drink back down on the table.

“I’m not really in the mood right now,” said Charlie.

“No, me neither,” said Dennis. He scrunched up into a face. “We just got new drinks, man, let’s relax for a minute. We can dance in a bit.”

It took him a second to realize that this was, again, directed to him and required some kind of participation on his part. Mac wasn’t really used to having what he did or didn’t do rely on what somebody else wanted, so he didn’t immediately catch on that the “we” that just got new drinks meant everybody but the “we” that would dance later was just Mac and Dennis. Of course, he guessed, it’s not like Dennis would want to dance alone.

Dennis was watching him expectantly. Mac jolted.

“Oh! Yeah, okay,” he said. “Whatever you want, man.”

Mac wasn’t looking directly at him, but Dennis didn’t seem to notice. He propped his elbow up on the table, cradling his chin in his palm.

“So, Charlie—”

“Well, hold on a second. Hold on,” said Dee. “I’m still in the mood to go dance. Charlie?”

“What?” he asked, dragging his focus away from what Dennis was saying to him.

“Can you get out of the booth to let me out, please?”

“Oh, yeah.”

They both scooted out of it, Charlie immediately throwing himself back into his seat once she was clear. Dee turned around, raising her eyebrows.

“Mac?” she said, and his gaze snapped up to her. “Are you coming?”

“Oh,” he said. “I, um—”

Dennis’s hand dropped to his inner thigh and squeezed, almost absently. He swilled his beer around with his other hand and continued on his conversation with Charlie just like normal. Mac swallowed and downed more of his drink.

“Maybe in a bit,” said Mac.

Dee’s nose turned up. She sneered, “Whatever.”

He could tell she was mad when she turned and stomped away, but Mac honestly didn’t care how Dee felt. He picked his drink up and tried to jump into Dennis and Charlie’s conversation.

He drifted in an out instead — catching the thread of a discussion midway through proved difficult, but people watching wasn’t. He zoned between the two activities. Dee found a woman at the bar to buy a drink for and dance with, and was now leaning in close to her with both arms around her neck, chatting every now and then. Neither one of them would stop smiling.

“It’s just more sustainable, trust me,” Dennis was saying. “I watched a whole documentary on it.”

“A documentary, huh?” said Charlie. “That’s cool. So is that, like, one of those movies that’s a true story? Or like, based in fact, or—?”

“It’s…” Dennis frowned. After a moment’s thought, he demanded, “How do you not know what a documentary is?”

Mac reached the dregs of his whiskey sour. He put the glass down, pulling his arm away where it was slung out across the back of the booth behind Dennis’s shoulders.

“I’m gonna go dance,” said Mac, steamrolling over Charlie’s rebuttal. He still didn’t look directly at Dennis, opting instead to stare at his lap as he poked him in the thigh and added, “Dennis? Move?”

“Oh, um…Yeah.”

They shuffled around to let Mac out. Dennis caught his hand right before he walked away, and Mac paused, turning back toward him instead.

“Hey,” said Dennis, more quietly, while across the table Charlie starting chugging beer and graciously pretending like he couldn’t hear, “I’ll be out there in a few minutes, okay?”

His thumb was running light and fast over Mac’s knuckles. Mac glanced down at their hands for a long moment before looking back up at Dennis’s face. He pulled his arm away.

“Okay.”

He could feel Dennis’s curious eyes on his back as he walked away. Dee spotted him when he passed the last of the tables where the room gave way to open floor, and she didn’t beckon him over but he joined her anyway. Dee shifted apart from the woman she was with, only slightly, but enough to turn toward him and glare.

“Hey,” said Mac.

“Mac, this is Cindy,” said Dee, gesturing toward the woman with the arm not wrapped around her waist. “Cindy, Mac. He’s leaving.”

“Hi, Mac,” said the woman. She even smiled at him.

“Uh…Hey.”

“He’s not very friendly,” Dee stage-whispered. “We don’t usually let him out of the house.”

Cindy clapped her hand over her mouth as she laughed. Mac narrowed his eyes back at Dee, but there was no real heat in it, even though she glared back twice as fiercely. Cindy cleared her throat.

“So, Mac. How do you know Dee?”

Mac glanced around the dance floor. Maybe coming over here was a mistake.

“Um…We work together,” he said eventually. “I mean. I guess we were friends in high school, but then I moved away for, like, eleven years, and now I’m banging her brother. It’s a whole big thing.”

“Oh,” said Cindy. She strangely didn’t sound too put off; her eyebrows shot up a couple of inches, but she looked interested. “Well, welcome back to the city.”

“Thanks,” said Mac, “but it was a while ago.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” said Dee.

Mac cleared his throat. After a moment’s silence, Cindy jerked her thumb at Dee.

“She really doesn’t want me talking to you, huh?” Cindy asked.

“No,” said Mac. “She never introduces us to anybody. She doesn’t really trust us.”

“And also, you never give a shit!” Dee cut in. “You’re rude to everyone I’ve so much as played a game of darts with!”

Mac waved a hand at her dismissively. Cindy grinned at him. Dee crossed her arms, looking furious, although she visibly relaxed — not much, but a little bit — when Cindy wound an arm around her back and pulled her playfully closer. “Oh, we’re just teasing you. Right, Mac?”

He shook his head, sharp and quick.

“I wasn’t,” he said.

“Mac’s a dick,” Dee said bluntly.

Cindy’s forehead creased; she seemed unsure if they were kidding or not. Before she could ask any more questions, Dee gave one of her horrible, tinny, fake laughs.

“Well, we don’t need to get into all of this now,” she said, a sharp edge in her voice, “or ever!”

“I think someone’s coming over to collect you, anyway,” said Cindy.

She nodded over Mac’s shoulder, and he turned around to see Dennis walking toward him from over by the bar. He carried a drink in either hand.

“Bye,” said Dee, and she grabbed Cindy’s hand and pulled her away until the crowd closed in around them and they disappeared. Mac turned to see them go just long enough to catch Cindy giving him a little wave and an even smaller smile. Before he could remember himself, he began to smile back.

“Mac.”

He turned to find Dennis right beside him, raising an eyebrow but offering him a glass. Mac took it quickly.

“Hi.” He was suddenly unsure what to do with his hands, and picked at the stirrer in his drink for something to occupy them.

“Who was that?” asked Dennis.

“Oh, um…Just Dee’s latest,” he said.

“You seemed to be getting along with her.”

There was a slight something in Dennis’s voice that Mac couldn’t identify; he sounded very carefully neutral. Even his expression was impassive. Mac couldn’t tell if he was supposed to have been rude to Cindy instead, or if Dennis was thinking about something else entirely.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “She seemed cool.”

“Cool.” But Dennis’s eyes were tracing his face, plainly looking for something.

Mac gulped down some liquor and reached down, grasping around until he found Dennis’s hand. Dennis’s controlled expression didn’t shift, even though his fingers relaxed to let Mac’s in between them.

“Let’s go over here.”

Mac pulled him around the crowd so that they were nearer to the speakers. He preferred to be right in the thick of people dancing, enjoyed being pressed in on from all sides by sweaty, jubilant bodies, but Dennis hated it. He always got antsy and made up a ton of excuses every five minutes about how he had to go to the bathroom or get more drinks or something, and Mac inevitably lost him for half an hour until he found him squished back in the booth with Charlie or talking to some random stranger at the bar.

They kept to the fringes of the mob, but the music was near-deafening over here; he’d have to shout to be heard, even if he pressed his mouth right up against Dennis’s ear.

Dennis wound an arm around Mac’s waist and Mac shuffled up against him, burying his face in Dennis’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around Dennis’s back, pulling him in tightly. He felt him exhale.

They moved to an odd tempo. It was too fast to count as slow dancing, but nowhere near the jumping and fist-pumping of the crowd. They existed in their own little bubble, and it was only mildly annoying that he could occasionally hear Dennis slurping on his vodka cranberry right next to his head.

Mac leaned back eventually to suck on his drink, and looked up to find Dennis watching him.

“What’s up with you tonight?” he asked.

Mac blinked at him. “Huh?”

“You’re acting so weird,” Dennis insisted. “And you’ve been quiet.”

“So?”

“So you’re not quiet, Mac! You are not a quiet person. You are, in fact, the loudest and most irritating person that I know.”

Mac snorted. “Thanks, _sweetie_.”

Dennis rolled his eyes.

“Well, it’s true,” he said stubbornly. He unwound the arm around Mac’s waist and thumbed at his cheek, lifting his own chin like it would help him examine Mac’s face any better. Mac frowned and looked away. “Come on, tell me. What’s got you acting like such a little bitch? Huh?”

Mac sighed. “Can’t we go back to dancing?”

“No,” said Dennis. He softened. “How am I supposed to make you stop sulking if I don’t know what’s got you so fucking distracted?”

Automatically, Mac snapped, “I’m not sulking.”

Dennis’s hand slipped off his cheek and landed on his shoulder. He smoothed down some wrinkles on Mac’s shirt and didn’t say anything. The fire licking at the insides of Mac’s stomach didn’t abate but watching Dennis calmly fixing his shirt made something else flare up alongside it — a guiltier feeling, pulling him in a similar direction as the internal tug that was always urging him physically closer to Dennis no matter how far apart they stood.

“Sorry,” Mac breathed, finally. “I’m just…I don’t know. I’m in kind of a weird mood tonight. I really…I don’t want to talk about it. Can we just drop it?”

Dennis watched him for another long handful of seconds, frowning. Then his face abruptly cleared, and he smiled, reaching up to brush back some of Mac’s hair.

“Sure we can,” he said, too bright — Mac could see how much of it was deliberately infused. “Wanna keep dancing or go back and sit with Charlie?”

“I wanna stay,” said Mac.

He was already leaning in and wrapping his arms back around Dennis’s middle, tucking his chin on his shoulder. Dennis smoothed a hand through Mac’s hair and just let him meld to his front. He didn’t even make fun of him when Mac started taking sips of his drink from over Dennis’s shoulder.

Upbeat, fast songs kept blaring nearby as they swayed much more slowly together. They finished up their drinks and abandoned them on a nearby table. With a grin, Dennis circled an arm around him and spun him around, pushing him further onto the dance floor. Mac raised his eyebrows. Dennis shoved at him again.

“Come on,” he goaded, his face so close to Mac’s that he could have leaned in and kissed him without moving his feet. “Well? I thought you wanted to dance.”

“We _were_ dancing,” Mac complained. He pouted, pulling at Dennis’s hips. His own weren’t moving very fast.

“Yeah, but we weren’t, you know, _dancing_ -dancing,” said Dennis. “Pick it up, baby boy. Thought that’s why you begged me to come out tonight?”

“Coming out was Dee’s idea!”

“Whatever,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. He pushed Mac’s hands off his waist and started to move, more chaotic, the way the people around them were doing. “You were excited, that’s why you were being such a dick yelling at me when I was getting dressed.”

“Well, you always take forever,” said Mac.

But he started to get into the music too. He wasn’t moving quite as erratically as Dennis, who by comparison was still tamer than everyone else here, and he rolled his eyes when Dennis grabbed his hands and forcibly spun him around again. Still, a smile curled on his mouth anyway as he started to pick up his movements, growing wilder.

“That’s it, Mac! That’s it!” said Dennis, ducking out of the way as Mac’s elbows started emerging prominently in his dancing. He laughed. “See? Isn’t this more fun than moping around all night?”

His heart thumped at the reminder, but he nodded. Dennis grinned widely at him.

After a couple of more songs, Mac retreated to get another beer. He glanced over his shoulder while he was waiting, and saw that Dennis was still enjoying himself, although Mac could see red coloring his cheeks and he knew he was getting self-conscious out there alone. He sighed, looking over at their abandoned booth; it looked awfully inviting. He had no idea where Charlie had gone.

By the time he got his drink, he’d resigned himself to going back over to Dennis, but when he turned back around he saw that Dee and Charlie had both found him. They were laughing and dancing together, along with Dee’s girl. Mac rubbed at one of his eyes. Probably he should go over there and join them, but their energy exhausted him enough from across the room.

Mac sat back down at the edge of the booth, zoning out into his beer while his finger traced the grooves on the mug. He was nursing it more than anything, but his head was fuzzy from all the liquor he’d had so he wasn’t in any rush to get drunker anyway. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there alone when he caught someone approaching from his peripheral and glanced up.

“Are you almost ready to go?” Dennis asked.

Sweat glistened at his hairline, and a bright smile seemed magnetized to his face. Mac swallowed tightly and nodded.

“Great. Well, finish up your beer then, no use wasting it,” said Dennis. “Sweet Dee’s getting that woman’s number and I think Charlie’s throwing up or, like, hitting on some dude in the bathroom or something. I’m gonna go close out our tabs, ‘kay?”

Mac, following his directive and drinking deeply from his beer, was otherwise occupied and couldn’t answer; he nodded instead. Looking satisfied, Dennis squeezed his shoulder once and disappeared.

They called a cab to take them home. Crammed into the backseat between Dee and Charlie, Mac wasn’t really in the mood for their incessant, drunken singing along to the radio. Every now and then Dennis turned around from the front seat and grinned at him, and Mac did his best to muster up a smile back.

Everything was fine, he thought, as the taxi dropped off Dee and then Charlie at their respective apartments. He’d be home soon, and then he only had to chat with Dennis for a few minutes before he’d be able to barricade himself in his room and go to bed. All of this stupid drink-induced moodiness would evaporate in the morning over a fresh pot of coffee.

They didn’t tip the cabbie and Dennis locked the apartment door behind them. Mac had already shrugged off his jacket and headed into the kitchen to fetch them both water. He was chugging when Dennis came in after him, and Mac gestured toward the glass sitting out for him on the table.

“Thanks,” said Dennis on a sigh.

Mac hummed vaguely in response.

Dennis slammed his empty cup on the counter. Mac jumped, looking up with his eyes wide.

“Alright, what the hell is going on with you?” Dennis demanded.

“What do you mean?” asked Mac.

He twisted to refill his glass in the sink, half turning his back on him. Dennis made an irritated sound.

Mac glanced back at him and Dennis demanded, “What is this about? What, like…” His hands waved around. “…prompted this stupid mood you’ve been in all night? Don’t try and deny it, man. You’ve been a real bitch ever since the club.”

Mac gritted his teeth, jaw setting, and said nothing.

“You know what, it doesn’t even matter,” said Dennis. “Just don’t take it out on me!”

“I’m _not_ taking it out on you!” said Mac.

“Oh, really? Because you didn’t want to dance with me, at all. You abandoned me out there with Dee and Charlie,” he said, sneering both of their names. “You spent half the night sitting in a corner looking like you were gonna cry.”

“I did _not_ ,” said Mac. That felt unfair; he was much more likely to hit something or get into a fistfight than he was to break down. That was Dennis’s territory, not that he would ever admit it either. “I don’t cry, asshole.”

“Well, maybe I wish you would!” said Dennis. “Then you’d get it over with instead of being pissed off at me for a week over something that I don’t even know I did!”

Mac glared at him. He set his water down, watching as Dennis took a shuddering breath but decided to stand his ground.

“I’m not…pissed off at you,” Mac said at last. “Fuck.”

He rubbed at his forehead, trying to knead through his skin and smooth out the headache he could feel building up behind his skull. He heard Dennis getting closer, but didn’t look up until he was a foot away.

“Mac,” he said, quietly.

Something about the softness in his voice made all of Mac’s anger rush back up at once, and he slammed his fist down on the counter. Dennis didn’t jump, but he looked back at him with big eyes. Mac looked back with his forehead wrinkled and something tough and dense and mean in his chest starting to crack all along its seams.

“This doesn’t…I’m not saying this has anything to do with anything,” Mac warned, “but I…Look, dude, just tell me if you…If you’re gonna be…”

He clutched at his hair hard enough to hurt. Dennis watched him guardedly.

“Gonna be what, Mac?” he asked at last. Mac looked up at him, frustrated and unhappy. Dennis held up his hands. “I seriously have no idea what’s going on here, man! All I tried to do all night was get drunk with you and maybe have a dance for a song or two! You seemed into it for the first part of the night. I don’t know what happened.”

Mac’s fists clenched by his sides, blunt nails digging into his palms. He felt boxed in over here, cornered between Dennis and the counter by the fridge. All at once he pushed past him, striding into the living room for more room to pace, to breathe and clear his head. He heard Dennis trailing after him but didn’t look up.

“Mac. Baby…” His voice was close by; Mac glanced at him and saw Dennis hovering between the kitchen and living room, watching him. Whatever he must have seen on Mac’s face made his expression abruptly shudder over, and he scowled. “Fine, whatever! Mope around out here all night for all I give a shit, asshole! _I_ had fun tonight and I’m not gonna let you ruin that because you feel like being a fucking dick. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dennis passed without looking at him. He got as far as pushing open the door to his room when Mac stopped pacing.

“Are you sleeping with anyone else?” Mac demanded.

Dennis froze. Very slowly, one hand still on the doorknob to his bedroom, he spun to face Mac where he stood shaking in the middle of their living room. His fists had tightly balled themselves by his sides again.

“ _What_?”

Dennis dropped his hand from the door, arm swinging. Mac swallowed.

“Look, I’m…It’s fine if you are. I know we didn’t…Uh, whatever,” said Mac. He gestured loosely between them. “I just…I need to know if you’re gonna be doing that, okay? I just need to know, so I can…like, get used to it. I’ll be fine with it, um, eventually. As long as you don’t do it in front of me. I can be fine with it. I just need to know.”

His eyes were on the floor when he finished, but he sneaked a nervous glance up at Dennis. He fidgeted his weight to his other foot, more of a twitch than anything else. His palms were sweating but he had no idea when that had started.

“I’m…” Dennis swallowed. He squinted at Mac. “Is this what’s been bothering you all night?”

Mac shrugged.

“ _Why_?”

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know!” Mac shouted. He cleared his throat, head shaking. “Look, man, like I said, I know you’re not ready to be — you know, whatever — I just need—”

He stuttered into silence as Dennis crossed the room. Eyes darting across his face, Mac stayed still as Dennis got close to him. Dennis’s arms raised hesitantly, but Mac didn’t move, letting him reach to cup his face. His thumbs moved in that same slow, hypnotic way they always did, and Mac didn’t know if he wanted to lean into it or push him away but he was already closing his eyes, swaying nearer.

“Baby,” Dennis murmured. Mac opened his eyes and Dennis was _laughing_ , a soft look on his face. “Mac, baby, listen to me. Listen to me with I say this: I am not sleeping with anyone but you.”

Mac sighed. “Dennis—”

“Hey,” he snapped, dropping his arms. “I’m not lying, asshole.”

Mac frowned, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He glanced up at him.

“Do you mean that?” he asked quietly.

“Mac,” said Dennis, smiling again even as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed Mac’s arms, shaking him. “ _Yes_. Look…”

He swept his hand through his hair, breaking away to turn his back on him. Mac let him have the distance. The longer Dennis faced away from him, the further that anxious energy spread back through Mac’s blood, and he was bouncing his leg when Dennis whirled around holding his breath.

“Okay, listen to me,” said Dennis.

Mac felt like he was speaking around a heavy blockage in his throat when he nodded sharply and said, “I’m listening.”

“I just…I don’t really know what you want from me, I guess,” said Dennis. “I can’t, like…I don’t think I can be what you want me to be. I can’t, like, be whatever perfect boyfriend that you have in your head, who always…does the right thing at the right time, and has a regular date night and holds open the door and does whatever the fuck else I’m supposed to do. I’m not gonna be that person. But…” He rubbed at one side of his face. “I guess, it’s just that I’d be pretty upset too. If you…you know. Went out someone else either.”

“Dennis…” Mac buried his face in his hands, shaking his head. Dennis was worrying his lip pretty hard when Mac looked back up at him, and he sighed. “You have _no_ idea what I want.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” Dennis snapped.

Mac smiled. He thought that Dennis looked pretty fucking cute, standing over there like a ball of nerves, his hands wringing together and curling in on himself against the armrest of their sofa. Mac kept smiling at him and after a minute, Dennis’s expression cleared and he snorted, shaking his head.

“So…That’s it?” said Mac. Dennis didn’t raise his head but he looked up and met Mac’s eye. “We’re not gonna see other people?”

“Like I said,” Dennis warned, holding up a finger sternly, “I’m not gonna be your boyfriend or anything like that.”

“But...” Mac took a step toward him, then another. Dennis relaxed, body seeming to open up to let him in when Mac got right in front of him. “You don’t wanna see other people? We can do that?”

Dennis rolled his eyes, his face turning pink.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” he said again.

“But,” said Mac.

Dennis sighed. Eventually, he nodded.

“But,” he agreed.

A big smile broke out over Mac’s face, and Dennis gave him an exasperated look when Mac’s hand spread across his cheek. He thumbed at Dennis’s mouth, across where he’d been biting down on his lip earlier, and Dennis let them part against his finger. Mac pulled on him until Dennis raised his chin, and Mac leaned down to kiss him with a sigh. Dennis reached to cross his arms around his neck and Mac pressed more of his weight down on him as he opened up sweetly beneath him.

Dennis moved at Mac’s pace for once, letting him guide them along in a slow rhythm without pushing him for more or demanding all the control. Mac spread his hands across Dennis’s cheeks, stroking his face, and moved to focus on each of his lips individually. A soft lick, a gentler bite. Lick and kiss and press the pads of his fingertips into the skin of his cheeks until Dennis gave a groan that sounded like a cross between want and frustration and reached to thread his fingers through Mac’s hair.

Dennis was panting quietly when Mac turned his head, disconnecting their mouths for just a couple of seconds. He surged up before Mac could catch his breath and crushed their lips together again, his free hand spreading out across Mac’s back over his t-shirt.

His forehead was creased when Mac pressed his own against it, breathing heavier than before. Frowning, Mac leaned a few inches away and smoothed the lines out with his first two fingers. Dennis reached up and caught his hand, and Mac paused, looking down at him in confusion. He couldn’t exactly read the look in Dennis’s wide eyes but there was something calming there, a silent directive that he could relax because nothing was wrong. Slowly, Dennis’s grip on his fingers relaxed but didn’t release, and he moved their hands down and to the side. Mac watched silently as Dennis leaned back in, gazes caught until the very last moment before their lips touched, and Mac closed his eyes again right as they met in the middle.

Dennis kissed gentle, fingers clinging but mouth drawing each meeting out long and sweet. Mac thought that it might have been softer than he’d ever kissed him. His palms slid down to Dennis’s waist, stroking over his shirt and the bare stretch of skin just above his jeans and back again, uncoordinated and directionless. Dennis smiled loosely against his mouth, and Mac flicked his tongue out, playfully swiping across Dennis’s lips. Dennis tipped his head and parted them, pushing his tongue up to meet Mac’s as it sunk into his mouth, and sucking. Mac licked across the roof of his mouth in reproach: How rude to try and one-up him at his own game.

Dennis sighed and tightened his fingers in Mac’s hair. His other hand ran up the front of Mac’s shirt, splaying across his abs.

There was nothing like kissing Dennis, he thought, spreading his hands across the small of Dennis’s back so that the ends of his fingers touched. It was like a shot of something strong and sweet tipped directly down his throat, crossed with the feeling he got once in a blue moon when he splurged on something nice and knew that he happened to have enough money in the bank not to regret it or have to worry when he got his credit card bill, mixed together by the warmth of Dennis’s hand falling from his hair to clutch at his back like he only ever wanted to urge Mac closer, closer, closer. Such an easy request to comply to. No deliberation required, ever.

They stood there kissing in the middle of their living room for a long time, until Dennis started bringing him down, mouths moving softer and softer until Dennis gave him one last, lingering kiss. Mac ran his fingers through Dennis’s hair and felt him sigh.

Dennis wrapped his arms around Mac’s waist and turned to bury his face in his neck. Mac rubbed at his back, nestling a cheek against the top of his head. They stayed there for a minute, clutching at each other. Eventually Dennis dropped his arms, and Mac pulled away, studying his face. Dennis’s red mouth curved up into a smile.

“Come on,” he said, pushing Mac back and off of him but reaching for his hand. “It’s really late. Let’s go to bed.”

Mac let him lead them into his bedroom. Dennis let him go after the door was shut, stripping off his shirt as he wandered into the bathroom. Mac watched him for a few seconds until he busied himself at the sink, and Mac finally reanimated to tug off his jeans and start changing.

He had to borrow a shirt, pulling open drawers at random until he found where Dennis kept his underclothes. He shrugged on a plain white shirt and followed Dennis into the bathroom.

“Can I borrow some mouthwash?”

Dennis nodded around his toothbrush.

The bathroom sink was small, and they had to shuffle around each other to both use it at the same time. Dennis ended up elbowing him out of the way a lot. He forced Mac to wait for him outside while he pissed, and Dennis was already nestled under two blankets when Mac finished getting ready and came back out. He thought that he might be asleep until Dennis turned his head slightly on the pillow to catch a glimpse of him in the doorway.

“Mac,” he grunted out. But he reached back and patted the mattress beside him, and with a slight smile Mac climbed into bed behind him.

Dennis stayed still beneath the covers while he got in but when Mac reached out, looping an arm around his waist and pulling him back against him, he shifted toward him. Mac pressed his grin into the back of Dennis’s neck, pushed a leg through Dennis’s, and went to sleep.

 

“It wasn’t, like, _that_ impressive,” Mac said, ducking his head down to cover his spreading blush.

When he glanced up, Rex — one of their Monday through Wednesday workers, who Mac had had some shots with and looked at but never really spoken to much — was watching him with his mouth ajar. A grin spread across Mac’s face in response.

“Nah, dude, you should be totally proud,” said Rex. “That dude sounds really tough. It’s cool you scared him off.”

“I totally scared him off,” Mac agreed, puffing his chest out more. He was so strong and good at his job. He should have been doing this years ago. “And you know what?”

Rex leaned in closer, his elbow propped up on the bar.

“What?”

“He never came back here again,” said Mac.

“Wow,” said Rex, nodding along with him. “That’s great, Mac. That’s really, really cool. That’s, like, so tough and brave and awesome.”

Mac turned this over for a moment. He perked up.

“It was awesome,” he said. His gaze flicked over Rex’s biceps, and he added, “You know, you could probably do stuff like this too, dude. What’s your arm day routine? ‘Cause I’ve been trying to focus on getting some more definition right here — No, not there. _Here_ , man. Yeah, yours are good though—”

“Hey, Mac.”

They looked up. Dennis was leaning over the counter next to them, his voice almost as hard as his glare as he pushed a beer over the bar toward him.

“What’s up?”

“Would you mind running this over to table five for me?” he said, nudging the beer closer to him. “I’m really swamped over here, and they’ve been waiting for like, ten minutes.”

Mac raised his eyebrows.

“So what, bro? I’m not a waitress,” said Mac. He glanced around the room. “Where the hell is Dee?”

“I don’t know, she’s probably off doing something stupid or whoring around like usual,” Dennis said testily. “So would you please run this over to table five for me?”

Mac rolled his eyes. “No way, dude. I’m right in the middle of something, and it’s, like, not even my job, you know? And I—”

“Well, you’re not doing your job!” Dennis snapped. “And if you’re going to stand right the fuck in front of me and refuse to check IDs like you’re supposed to, could you at _least_ pretend to make yourself useful and run a fucking drink for me every once in a while?”

Mac held up his hands.

“Jesus Christ, Dennis. Relax,” he said. His brow furrowed, and he snatched the beer from him. “I’ll run over the goddamn beer. Shit.”

He held up one finger to Rex and went to give the woman her order. She took about fifty years to dig out the money to pay him for it, and when he finally got back over to the bar, Dennis was busy mixing drinks for somebody else. Mac slapped the couple of dollars on the counter and leaned his hip against the bar, turning back toward Rex.

“So, what was I talking about?” he asked. “Oh, yeah. So the other day I was over on one of the weight machines, right, and this guy came over and said he was a trainer. He was showing me this new routine and it got me thinking, right? I was wondering what you thought about fitting in more reps per set. ‘Cause sometimes that can tire you out, like, _way_ faster.”

“You gotta up your protein powder,” said Rex. “Otherwise there’s nothing for your body to metabolize and turn into brute strength.”

He flexed, while Mac watched carefully and nodded. He thought he felt somebody glaring at him, but when he glanced up the only person he could see over Rex’s shoulder was Dennis at the other end of the bar, and he was very focused on shaking up a drink. Mac turned his attention back on Rex and smiled.

“That makes total sense,” he said. “I’ll add another scoop.”

“Cool. Cool,” Rex said. “Hey, listen, Mac…”

Mac cocked his head. Before either of them could say anything more, though, Dennis reappeared and shoved a glass across the counter so hard that some of the drink sloshed over the side.

“Mac,” he said tightly. “Table two?”

Mac sighed.

“Just give me a second,” he mumbled to Rex.

He grabbed the drink and retreated, away from Rex’s blank face and Dennis’s scowl. Whatever was putting Dennis in such a pissy mood tonight was clearly only getting worse. Mac made sure to bully the customer into tipping him a little more than usual, figuring throwing cash at the problem couldn’t hurt, but when Mac came back, handing Dennis his extra money, his jaw stayed firmly set and the angry crease in his forehead didn’t relax either.

“I got you a couple more dollars than usual, Den, look,” he pointed out, leaning over the counter to ruffle the money in his hand. Mac smiled encouragingly. “See, Dennis?”

“Yes, I can fucking count, Mac. God!” Dennis snatched the money away from him and stomped toward the register, pounding on it until it popped open the drawer. Mac frowned after him.

What the fuck was his problem if money couldn’t fix it? Mac sighed, wondering if later tonight he was going to have to either deal with Dennis getting really drunk —  like, drunk enough to finally yell his problem across the living room and then throw up for an hour in his bathroom while Mac stroked his hair and back because if he didn’t, Dennis would sleep in his own bed, alone, and Mac would be up all night worrying he was going to throw up and die in his sleep — or deal with Dennis wanting makeup sex but being a pillow princess the whole time because he got it into his head that Mac owed him something for his bad mood. Maybe he should keep an eye on Dennis’s drink count.

“So, Mac,” said Rex, drawing his attention back to him. “I was gonna ask you something before…”

“Oh, right,” said Mac. “Um, sure dude, go ahead. What is it?”

On the other side of the counter, not too far away, Dennis went very rigid while he was stirring up a cocktail. Mac squinted at him for a few seconds before he dragged his eyes back to Rex’s face and how he was suddenly chewing on his lip.

“Do you wanna get a drink sometime?” Rex asked. “I mean, not here. Well, we could come here if you wanted. But I was thinking, like, maybe we could go somewhere else, somewhere a little bit quieter. Maybe get some dinner or something too.”

Mac’s forehead creased more and more the longer that Rex talked. Behind the bar, Dennis wasn’t even pretending to mix drinks anymore. Instead he was just standing there staring at them and slowly turning red in the face. Rex smiled at Mac, now.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Are you…” Mac shook his head. “Sorry, are you asking me out on a date?”

“Oh, um…” Rex blinked hard at him before relaxing back into a smile. “Yeah, I am. So what do you say?”

“Oh…Oh,” said Mac. “Oh, dude, I didn’t — Um, I mean, I’m really flattered and everything. Obviously. I mean, look at you, you’re totally ripped and sexy and, like, a total beefcake. But I…I have a boyfriend.”

Rex took a step away from him, frowning. Behind the counter, Dennis’s complexion had gone in the complete opposite direction, and he now looked so pale that he appeared as though he was going to faint.

“Oh, okay,” said Rex. He held up his hands. “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t realize—”

“It’s totally okay,” Mac assured him. “If I didn’t have a boyfriend I’d be all over you, dude. I would have jumped you in the alley, like, immediately after you started working here.”

“You did,” said Rex.

“I did,” Mac agreed, nodding. “But like, I’d do it again and then actually go to dinner with you afterward.”

Rex smiled, a little bland, but good-natured enough.

“It’s cool, man,” he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I should get back to work.”

“Yeah…yeah,” Mac murmured, watching his fingers drum on the counter. He was still looking at his hand when Rex backed away and left. He scratched at the wood. In his corner of his vision, he watched Dennis edge his way closer along the bar until finally Mac looked up. “Hey, baby.”

Dennis seemed antsy, sweat beading at his hairline and his gaze darting around. He laid his arms on the counter, fingers tapping. Mac covered his wrist with one hand.

“What’s up?” said Mac.

“I, um…Nothing,” said Dennis, biting down on the inside of his cheek.

“Okay,” said Mac. He brushed his thumb against Dennis’s wrist. “I’m gonna go back to work, then.”

“Okay.”

Dennis just stood there, though, all that weird nervous energy cascading off of him. His jaw was still set but he was frowning, and he didn’t pull away to let Mac go any farther from him. He always looked just like this when he wanted to be kissed but didn’t want to ask for it, when he would rather go without than initiate himself.

A smile tugging at his lips, Mac leaned over the counter. Dennis’s eyes slipped shut right before their mouths met, a breathless, barely-audible sigh escaping him. His eyes stayed closed for a long moment after Mac pulled away.

He seemed a little calmer, now, not so fidgety anymore. Mac smiled.

“Okay,” said Mac.

“Okay,” Dennis breathed.

Mac pulled away from the bar, and Dennis slung a rag over his shoulder. Right before he left Mac turned back to him.

“I just had such a weird conversation, by the way,” he said, laughing. “Remind me to tell you about it later.”

Dennis looked nearly back to normal when he rolled his eyes, turning his back on Mac so he could keep tending bar. Mac grinned at him and headed to the front door.

He didn’t get to tell Dennis about it until they had closed up for the night and were walking home. The stars never really shown in the city but the moon was bright, big and looming and nearly full.

“So anyway,” said Mac, rolling his eyes, “it was _so_ weird. I mean like, I appreciate it and everything, but who just asks someone out like that out of the blue? It was totally unexpected. What was I supposed to say?”

“Mac, baby, it was _so_ obvious,” said Dennis. Mac turned to gape at him and Dennis squeezed his hand. “You were flirting with him for like ten minutes before he asked you!”

“I wasn’t _flirting_ , Dennis, oh my _god_.”

Dennis put on a caricaturized voice, deep and low, and said, “Oh my God, _Rex_ , your arms are so big and strong. Wanna work out shirtless at the gym together? Do you wanna slam protein powder and bench-press me?”

Mac pouted. “I don’t sound like that, Dennis.”

“Yes you do. And you were flirting,” said Dennis.

“No I wasn’t!”

“Yes! How do you not know what hitting on someone sounds like?”

“Dennis, why would I flirt with him?” Mac demanded. “Why would I hit on anybody else in the bar when you’re standing right there?”

“I — Shut up,” said Dennis, flushing pink. In the moonlight it was especially obvious, and Mac watched it happen with a bubbling, glowing feeling rising up in his chest. Dennis elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh, and by the way. I thought we had a talk about that.”

“About what?” said Mac. Dennis had a cagey look on his face again. “I told you, I wasn’t flirting.”

“Not that,” said Dennis, his cheeks darkening again. “About what you called me back there. That word. I thought we agreed we wouldn’t use it.”

“What? Oh,” said Mac. “No, _you_ agreed. I’m just calling a spade a spade, bro.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Dennis had the nerve to look angry, though the effect of his glare was ruined somewhat by him keeping his hand cupped in Mac’s.

“Look, I wasn’t gonna explain the whole thing to him,” said Mac, waving his free hand around. He rolled his eyes. “It’s just faster and more easier to say that you’re my boyfriend, okay?”

“I guess,” said Dennis, although the scowl didn’t lift off his face. He glared at the sidewalk. “Don’t do it again.”

“I’m going to,” said Mac blithely. “I’m going to do it again.”

“Mac.”

“No, I liked it. Felt good to say,” he said. He felt Dennis look up to glare and squinted up at the sky in the distance, relishing just the thought. “I’m gonna say it.”

“Mac!”

They bickered all the way home and all during sex and for a few minutes after Dennis had turned off the light and Mac curled around his back to go to sleep.

 

The waitress put another mimosa down in front of Mac.

“Can I get you boys anything else today?” she asked, clasping her hands together.

“No,” said Dennis, without looking up and away from Mac. Mac smiled at him over his straw.

“Umm…Okay, well I’ll be back around soon to check on you,” she said.

They still didn’t so much as glance at her. She sighed, shoulders slumping, and walked away.

“God, I thought that bitch would never leave,” said Mac, reaching out to snag one of Dennis’s hashbrowns. “This needs more salt.”

“They’re _mine_. They need what I say they need,” said Dennis. “Oh, Mac — Come on.”

Mac ignored him, banging the salt shaker over his plate. Dennis leaned back in his seat, complaining ad infinitum.

“This is completely inedible now,” he sighed.

Mac shrugged, stealing another one. Dennis tried unsuccessfully to push him away, but when his hand twisted just right Mac had the perfect opportunity to grab it and hold it on top of the table to the side of their plates. Dennis sighed again, loosely pushing their feet together beneath the table.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking we can do today,” said Mac. Dennis shoveled another big bite of his avocado, bacon, egg and cheese into his mouth, looking up at Mac as he leaned low over his plate. “Charlie and me were in Fairmount Park a couple weeks ago and we found this _huge_ —”

“That’s so cool, babe,” said Dennis earnestly. “But uh, the farmer’s market closes at three and it’s already eleven-thirty.”

Mac flipped his phone open and frowned down at the time glaring back at him.

“Oh…” he said.

“I just — I have to pick up some stuff from there, and they won’t be back around here until a couple of weeks from now,” said Dennis. He ran his thumb in circles against Mac’s. “I have to get some more of that jam you like, remember what I put on your toast on Tuesday? You said it might have changed your mind about how you feel about grape jam.”

“Oh…yeah. That’s true,” said Mac. “It was really good. But Dennis, if we wait too long then the park is gonna be overrun with high school kids. Last time we went, they threw rocks at us.”

“Don’t go to Lemon Hill,” Dennis suggested, taking another bite of his food. He leaned back in his chair, reaching for Mac’s mimosa to wash it down.

“Dennis—”

“There’s this woman at the farmer’s market who sells the best bread in the _city_ , Mac,” said Dennis. “Plus you love it there! There are always people around who let you pet their dogs, right? And good food from the trucks?”

He was looking at Mac with big eyes, every inch of him coaxing toward the farmer’s market. Mac kicked at his foot under the table and pulled his hand away from Dennis’s, folding them in his lap.

“I guess,” he muttered.

He frowned down at his hands until finally Dennis sighed. Mac looked up, heart rising as he watched Dennis put the mimosa back down in the middle of them and lean back in his seat, running a hand through his hair.

“Okay, what about this,” said Dennis. He spread his hands, elbows on the table. Mac snatched the mimosa out of danger of getting knocked over. “You and me leave here in ten minutes. We go to the farmer’s market for — an hour, tops. Skip the food trucks, no walking around. In and out. Then…we can meet up with Charlie at Fairmount Park and go take a look at whatever ditch or tree or whatever it is that you want to go see. Okay?”

“It was a cave,” said Mac.

“That — What?” Dennis reared back, blinking at him. “Where the fuck did you find a _cave_?”

“Just a little one,” Mac qualified. “Like, kid-sized.”

Dennis snorted and crossed his arms. “Well, Charlie can fit in there.”

“Exactly!” said Mac. “Charlie’s gonna go explore while we keep lookout, then if he finds anything cool, we’re gonna dig it out a bit so we can all go in.”

“I…Okay, that actually sounds pretty goddamn interesting,” Dennis admitted. Mac beamed at him, and beneath the table he slid one of his feet back between Dennis’s. “So, does that work for you? Farmer’s market ‘til one, then we go check out your cave?”

Mac leaned over the table, grabbing Dennis’s hand again and threading their fingers together.

“Yeah,” he said.

Dennis rolled his eyes. Mac dove back into the hash browns while Dennis finished his sandwich. Mac smiled at Dennis every now and again in between bites, which Dennis barely returned — but Mac saw him going pink-cheeked each time anyway, so he was okay with it.

They cleaned their plates and took turns helping finish the drink. Only when the waitress came over to clear the table did Dennis pull his hand back from Mac’s, primly readjusting his napkin over his lap and giving her space to take his things. Mac shoved everything he’d used over toward her and turned to his phone to shoot Charlie a text about the updated plans. The waitress said something to Dennis but Mac didn’t hear it, and she was gone when Mac finished his message and put his phone back down. Dennis shot him a little smile.

The woman came back soon, and she set two checks down, smiled, and disappeared. Dennis opened his, nodding at whatever he was perusing. He dug his wallet out of his back pocket, slipped his credit card into the plastic holder, and propped it up on the edge of the table before immediately turning to mess around on his phone. Chewing on his lip, Mac watched him until it became clear that Dennis was just going to keep on texting for a while. With a sigh he opened his own check holder and grimaced at the number.

Four mimosas, two sides of bacon, a small salad (Dennis’s insistence), and a build-your-own omelet with three different meats, two cheeses, and four vegetables (also by Dennis’s demand) stuffed in. Mac drummed his fingers on the table as he went through the price a second time.

“Dude. You okay?”

Mac glanced up to find Dennis watching him, mid-text with his fingers still poised over the keys. Mac looked back down at the receipt, still frowning.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s just, like...A lot.”

“What’s the damage?” asked Dennis, peering over the top of the check. “Oh, that’s not too bad.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Mac snapped. He bit the inside of his cheek. “You know, this is your fault anyway.”

Dennis let out a startled laugh. “What? How?”

“Because,” said Mac, waving a hand in the air. “You made me buy all this — You made me add all this gross green shit, bro! So — So—”

Dennis put his phone down and leaned back, his jaw clicking but a faint smile on his face as he crossed his arms.

“What exactly are you getting at, Mac?”

Mac blushed. He stared more determinedly at his check.

“Nothing,” he muttered. After a second, he shook his head. “Nothing! Whatever, Dennis. Fuck you.”

He groped around for his wallet, yanking it out of his jeans with more force than necessary and glaring at his credit card as he pulled it out. With a world-weary sigh, Dennis snatched Mac’s check holder out of his grip before he could stop him, then pulled his own away from the edge of the table and plucked his card out of it.

“What are you doing, bro?” Mac demanded.

Dennis sent him a withering look. Clearing his throat, he stuck a hand up in the air and called, “Hey, waitress! Waitress, can you come over here for a second?”

Mac stared at Dennis as he waited, fidgeting very slightly in his seat, for their waitress to cross back over to their table. Mac glanced up at her with his mouth ajar.

With a superior smile, Dennis thrust both of their empty check holders out at her.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said, grabbing them from him and pocketing them in her apron. She clasped her hands by her waist. “Did you want to order something else? Have you changed your mind about dessert?”

“No, no,” said Dennis, waving his hand in the air. He threw a conspiratorial look and a wink in Mac’s direction, who just stared back at him vacantly. Dennis smirked up at the woman. “Actually, forget the separate checks. We want just the one for the table. On me, of course. I’ll be paying for both…me and my boyfriend.”

Mac froze. He had no idea what his face was doing at the moment but his heart was rabbiting a pretty loud tempo, sending blood rushing straight through his ears, and based on how wide his eyes were he was pretty sure that Dennis was probably uncomfortable with how forcefully Mac was staring. He couldn’t hear a goddamn thing, which didn’t really matter since all he was focused on was the movement of Dennis’s lips around whatever he was saying to the woman and where they were touching beneath the table. Almost imperceptibly, Mac pushed against the pressure of Dennis’s shin knocking into his.

Dennis wasn’t looking at him and their waitress plastered on a smile.

“Of course, sir,” she said.

She walked away. Dennis took his time folding his napkin in half and setting it down on the table. He smoothed his palms over his thighs, licking his lips, and Mac had absolutely no idea what he was thinking but he stayed still just watching, and waiting, with his heart thundering in his chest but no anxiety squeezing his chest at all. Dennis’s knee pressed into Mac’s, brief but insistent, before he sneaked a glance up at him. Mac finally stopped staring listlessly long enough to begin edging into a smile instead. Dennis’s cheeks were rosy but it made him look even more alive, happy and bright and intense, as he fought off a smile.

Dennis wrists landed down on the table and his hands were shaking, almost imperceptibly.

“Something you’d like to say?” he asked.

“Nope,” said Mac, shaking his head, his smile relentlessly growing. “Nothing.”

Dennis pressed his lips together. Mac grinned and nudged his knee against Dennis’s below the table, and Dennis turned to scan the rest of the room instead. Unbothered, Mac picked up his phone and started typing a reply to Charlie.

The waitress came back soon, and Dennis had his credit card ready to hand over before she could put the new receipt down.

“Before she comes back, help me figure out the tip,” said Dennis. He checked the time. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Mac traced the numbers invisibly out on the table with a finger. He ended up rounding down and Dennis tipped her less than ten percent, but he just muttered, “Whatever — She kept _hovering_ ,” and grabbed his jacket, scooting out of the booth without pulling it on.

“Come on,” Dennis muttered, holding out his hand. “Let’s get out of here before the roads get too crowded.”

Mac grabbed Dennis’s hand and kept them clasped even after he helped pull him out his side of the booth. Dennis nodded at the man up front telling them to have a good day while Mac held the door open for him to go through.

Dennis still wasn’t wearing his jacket, and his hands were trembling as he searched his pockets for his car keys. Mac wrapped an arm around his shoulders, rubbing at his bicep, until Dennis got the Range Rover unlocked and darted into the driver’s seat, fumbling to turn it on and crank up the heat. Mac buckled himself into the passenger’s side and just watched, a faint smile on his mouth, as Dennis reversed out of his spot with an arm slung across the back of Mac’s seat for leverage while he twisted around.

“Can you check my blind spot? The turn out of this parking lot sucks,” said Dennis, flipping on his blinker. “And find something on the radio, it’s like a twenty-minute drive to the farmer’s market and I’m _not_ gonna listen to the news any more. They were playing it the whole fucking time over your shoulder in the diner, it was so distracting.”

“Your radio is so staticky over here,” Mac complained, twisting the dials. “Oh, look, a whole station dedicated to classic rock! You’re good to turn after this car, by the way.”

“Wait — Was that Rick Astley? Go back, dude, go back—”

“Nope,” said Mac, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “Hey, keep your hands off the dial, bitch! You’ll never find the station, not while you’re driving.”

“I hate this song!”

“Too bad.”

“Goddamn you, Mac,” Dennis sneered. Mac reached over to settle a hand on Dennis’s knee, and Dennis glanced over at him but Mac stayed looking determinedly out the front window. He squeezed his thigh. Quieter, Dennis muttered again, “Goddamn you.”

Dennis pushed the car until it was speeding, in broad daylight on a main road after he’d had a bit to drink. Mac occasionally pointed out cop cars — or random, parked, dark-colored sedans that he mistook for cop cars — and fiddled with the radio, shooting Dennis little smiles over the center console every now and again.

Not that he was biased or anything, Mac thought, watching Dennis run a stop sign and roll down his window to scream profanities at and flip off the soccer mom sitting in a minivan with her four kids in the backseat that he’d just cut off, but hanging around running errands with his boyfriend with no plans on the horizon except to go mess around with their best friend in the park all afternoon was the best possible way to spend any given day. Easy.

The day was breezy but the sun was bright, heating them through the front windshield. Dennis was warm to the touch. Mac let himself smile as he turned to look out the window and watched the streets roll by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue left, y'all!!! i love each and every one of u. soft fool rights @ [x](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/183965233615)


	12. epilogue

**_one year later_ **

 

The door slammed shut behind them. Mac shrugged off his horrible orange vest and hung it up on the hook beside the door, glad to be temporarily rid of it, but Dennis just barreled straight through to the living room still bitching about what he’d been complaining about in the hallway — and in the car — and since they second they shut the office door on the guy signing off on their community service hours, really.

“It’s just like, it’s bullshit. You know?” said Dennis. He rolled his shoulders like he had a severe kink in his neck or something. Mac drifted after him out of the foyer. “Like, everyone on the fucking street can see me picking up trash or whatever! And the hours, dude, the _hours_. We’ve been up since, What? Seven a.m.?”

“It was like, nine,” Mac muttered, but he knew Dennis wasn’t listening to him.

“It’s bullshit! I’m a nice, attractive guy,” Dennis said, spreading his hands and grinning, making a face that Mac supposed was meant to come off as charming. When Mac didn’t reply, Dennis dropped the caricaturized expression and beat his fist into his other palm a couple of times. “I should get off for this kinda shit, man. You know?”

“I mean…We did burn down a building and then get a bunch of nine year olds to beat the shit out of each other over a game of basketball,” said Mac.

He came closer, slowly; when Dennis didn’t throw a punch or anything, Mac raised his hands and with a sigh Dennis turned around and let Mac peel him out of his orange vest, too.

“Yeah, man. Whatever. It’s just — picking up trash. You know?” said Dennis, turning back around once his arms were free.

Mac made a noncommittal noise as he hung Dennis’s vest up next to his own. He rinsed his hands off in the kitchen sink and wiped them down on his jeans, pondering over what leftovers they had in the fridge. He pulled it open and ducked down to check.

“Are you hungry?” Mac called. “I think there’s some Chinese food in here left over from date night the other day.”

He glanced over his shoulder only to find that Dennis had appeared in the doorway, in that spookily quiet way he sometimes moved. Dennis had his arms crossed, leaning on the wood frame and frowning at him.

“Yeah, heat me up some dumplings or something,” said Dennis. “Why aren’t you more pissed?”

Mac took out a few containers at random and flicked on the stovetop burner.

“Pissed about what?”

“Community service!” said Dennis. He waved his hands in the air. “Come on, getting mad about shit you brought on yourself is supposed to be your bread and butter!”

Mac glanced over his shoulder, shooting him a smile.

“Den, I’ve been doing community service since I was like, twelve,” Mac explained patiently. He pulled down one of their few clean pans and set it down to get hot, dumping some oil into it first for good measure. “It hardly fazes me anymore. It’s like, what’s on my to-do list today? Breakfast…lunch…do some bullshit for the city…pull a double at work.” Mac rolled his eyes, privately since he was still busy with the stove. “I’m used to it. I’ve planned it into my schedule.”

He heard Dennis snort softly behind him.

“That’s pathetic,” Dennis mumbled.

He hadn’t taken off his shoes so Mac heard him padding across their tiny kitchen, but it still took him a little bit by surprise when Dennis slid his arms around his waist and nuzzled into his back, cheek pressed against the top knob of his spine. Dennis squeezed him tight. Mac reached back to rub at his hair.

“When’s my dinner gonna be ready?” Dennis demanded.

“Ten, fifteen minutes?” said Mac. “Depends on if the stove shits the bed on us again.”

Dennis hummed noncommittally. Mac spun around in his arms until they were face to face, and Dennis leaned in at once. Mac brushed his fingers through his hair again when he ducked down for a kiss.

He didn’t pull away for a long moment — and when he did Dennis just leaned up to give another, and another. Long and sweet.

Finally he leaned back and opened his eyes, and Mac rubbed his back through his t-shirt.

“You know what?” said Mac.

Dennis raised his eyebrows.

Mac dropped his volume several levels and said, “You did look very sexy in that neon community service vest, though.”

Dennis broke out laughing. He shoved at Mac’s chest until he dropped his arms from around him and Dennis was free to step back, pushing away from him. Mac grinned.

“Shut the hell up,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. Mac snickered, reaching to yank on the bottom of his t-shirt. “I’m gonna go take a nap. Wake me up when dinner’s ready.”

“Okay,” said Mac. “You might wanna shower or something too, bro. We still have to go in and open up the bar later.”

Dennis’s groan lingered in the room longer than he did.

Mac finished reheating their leftovers and dumped them out onto plates. He even opened them both bottles of beer before he knocked on the bedroom door and peeked in to see if Dennis was still sleeping.

Mac had moved all of his stuff into this room over half a year ago, converting the other bedroom into a workout studio-slash-junky overflow storage space-slash-trash room where they kept stuff that one of them hated but that other refused to part with permanently.

Mac climbed onto his side of the mattress and propped his chin up in his hand. With the other, he shook Dennis by the shoulder, gently at first, then harder when he got no response.

“Dennis,” he hissed in his ear. “Hey, Dennis!”

Mac rocked him so hard that he nearly tumbled off the bed. His eyes flew open just before he did and he caught himself on the edge of the dresser; rolling over with a glare, Dennis socked him hard in the arm.

“What the fuck, Mac?” he whispered. He closed his eyes again and stuck both his hands underneath his head, immediately curling back up into a ball to go back to sleep.

“Naptime’s over, bitch,” said Mac. He spread his hand out across Dennis’s side, ready to shake him again if need be. As it was, he rubbed his thumb against his t-shirt instead. “Wake up. Food’s getting cold.”

“I don’t give a shit about the food,” Dennis groaned. “I’m tired. We’re working ‘til three.”

“Yeah,” Mac agreed, not entirely without sympathy. “Come on, if you don’t wake up I’m going to eat your dumplings.”

Dennis cracked an eye open.

“Is that a euphemism?”

Mac smacked him in the side. Grinning, Dennis sidled closer and threw an arm over Mac’s waist, burying his face in his shoulder. Mac rubbed at the top of his head with a sigh.

They stayed curled together like that for a while, until Dennis’s hold on him willingly loosened and Mac ducked down to press a kiss to his hair.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Mac murmured, pulling away from him completely and sitting up. “It’s a long shift and we’re not gonna get a chance to eat until we get back.”

“Yeah,” Dennis sighed. He sat up too, rubbing at one of his eyes. “Besides, you shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach anymore. I believe that’s how we ended up burning that building down in the first place.”

“That was not my fault,” Mac argued, following Dennis out of their bedroom. “That was Charlie’s idea!”

“And if you hadn’t agreed with him, we could have had a united front!” said Dennis. “See what happens when you don’t follow my plan? Charlie gets a big head and we end up like this.”

“You were on board with this, Dennis!” he said. “We both didn’t want to do the video, and then Charlie came up with his dumbass plan, and you said yes just like I did!”

“So you admit it? You sided with him?” Dennis said quickly. Mac gaped at him. Dennis poked at his dinner with his fork, pushing one dumpling over, and frowned. “Mac, this Chinese food is cold.”

Mac groaned and threw his hands in the air, defeated.

 

The bar was already beginning to fill up when they got in, a few regulars already spread out in their usual corners. Mac followed Dennis over to the bar, leaning over it to grab a beer. Dennis reached to pop the cap off with an opener, darting up for a kiss before he pulled away.

“Could you two please stop jerking each other off long enough to get to work?” said Dee, drifting over to Dennis’s side and snatching up one of the glasses sitting in front of him. “Dennis, there’s some guys down at the end that have been waiting ‘til you got in.”

She nodded over to them. Dennis gave Mac one last quick smile and went to take the men’s orders.

Mac folded his arms on the counter and took a long drink. Dee poured some juice into a glass of vodka and looked up at him, arching an eyebrow. Mac did a double-take.

“What?” he sighed.

Dee snorted, shaking her head. She stuck a stirrer in and passed the glass across the counter toward a handsome woman in double denim. The woman nodded, smiling at Dee, and handed back a very big tip and a slip of paper that Mac was absolutely positive had ten digits scrawled on it.

“Mac, I’ve told you this a hundred times,” said Dee, slipping the money in her back pocket and tossing the woman’s number to the ground the second that she walked away. “You and Dennis being all over each other at the bar is bad for business. I mean, mostly just _his_ business, obviously, but it affects all of us! Last month you didn’t have enough money left over for my paycheck!”

“What are you talking about?” said Mac, his shoulders slumping as he hunched over his drink.

“Do you know why we have so many people in this bar?” said Dee.

“Um, our awesome drink specials and inviting atmosphere.”

“Our beer tastes like piss and this place looks like you might get stabbed at any moment,” said Dee.

“Well, stabbings have been down recently,” Mac pointed out.

Dee rolled her eyes.

“Dude, people come here to see if they can get lucky with the bartenders,” she said. “Look at those men down at the end there. You think they’d be here if they didn’t want to get in Dennis’s pants?”

Mac glanced over. They were squeezed together at the end of the bar, all grinning with varying degrees of desperation at Dennis and reaching to touch him where they could. One of them had Dennis’s hand in a grip and was a stroking his knuckles, but the others were all rubbing his arms too. Mac turned back to Dee and frowned.

“So?”

“So,” she said exasperatedly, “you shoving your tongue down his throat at every opportunity makes them think they don’t have a shot with him. So they aren’t buying drinks.”

“But they _don’t_ have a shot with him.”

“I know that,” said Dee. “And you know that, and he knows that. And so does every guy who’s tried to pick him up unsuccessfully for the past year. But it’s the hope that keeps the business alive, so stop accosting him whenever you feel like and go back to working the fucking door.”

Mac frowned, thinking this over. Dee watched him work it through with her eyebrows climbing steadily up her forehead.

“But… _you_ have a girlfriend,” said Mac at last, pointing at her.

“But unlike Dennis, I know how to keep my work life and my personal life separated,” Dee said brightly. She twisted the cap off a beer and knocked it against the neck of Mac’s bottle where it sat abandoned in front of him, then gestured around the room. “Do you see her here? No, because I didn’t hire her. Because I’m not an idiot.”

“You don’t even have hiring powers, you stupid bitch,” said Mac. “She’s not here because we wouldn’t take her!”

“You don’t have hiring powers either, Mac,” said Dee. “Just because Charlie has sold you a shit ton of his shares of the bar in exchange for dumb shit here and there doesn’t make you in charge all of a sudden.”

Mac grimaced.

“Whatever,” he said, after a pause in which he tried and failed to come up with an appropriately biting reply.

“Whatever,” Dee mimicked, poorly.

They sat around drinking for a couple of minutes, Dee glancing around the room while Mac played with his bottle. A woman down at the other end of the bar waved at her after a while, and she pushed herself up off the counter. Right before she left, Dee slanted a glance back over in Mac’s direction — he caught it as he was tipping his beer back to drink, and lowered the bottle back down to the counter instead.

“You’re still coming over tomorrow, right?” said Dee. “We made a deal when I helped you and Dennis bring all of your shit to your apartment.”

“Yes, bitch,” Mac sighed. “I know, I remember.”

“Cool,” said Dee. “Cindy already has everything packed up so she should be by with the moving truck around ten, if you want to get to her place around then and help load everything into the back.”

“Sounds thrilling,” said Mac. He stood up. “I’m gonna go back to work now.”

“Ten in the _morning_!” Dee warned.

Mac waved her off and headed toward the front door. When he passed Dennis at the other end of the bar, Dennis nodded at him and split into a small smile.

They stayed busy until close, when Charlie flipped the _Closed_ sign on and Dennis wound his arm through Mac’s. They murmured goodbyes to their friends, who wandered off in turn, and headed down the street toward where they’d parked the car.

Mac dozed on the short drive home. The streets in the city never got empty, just emptier — and it was dark and quiet when he climbed out of the car, the lamps lining the road all knocked out near their building for no reason. He’d only noticed it a couple weeks ago, although Dennis said some dumbass kids had broken them all over a month before.

Mac leaned into his side as they climbed the stairs, ready to collapse immediately into bed as soon as they got inside.

He locked the door while Dennis headed further in, flicking on lights as he went. Even their apartment was uncharacteristically quiet, the usual city noises more dimmed than usual. Mac crossed directly to their room, just sort of toeing out of his shoes and stripping out of his work clothes as he went. He didn’t notice that Dennis hadn’t followed him until he had already been lying face down in bed for a couple of minutes, drifting, and he woke abruptly with the realization that nobody was rubbing his back.

Mac pushed himself up onto his side, squinting around the dark bedroom. He dug the heel of his palm into his eye.

“Den?” he called.

Now he could hear water running in the kitchen, and the soft pad of socked foot. Frowning, he used the last of the day’s energy to climb back out of bed and go looking. He found Dennis washing dishes in the sink, and Mac crossed his arms in the doorway.

“Dennis?” he said again.

Dennis jumped, spinning around. He hastened to shut off the faucet and put down the plate he’d been rinsing off. Mac frowned.

“What are you doing?” he asked, stepping closer. “It’s late.”

“I know,” said Dennis. He reached for a dishtowel tucked into the oven handle and quickly dried his hands. Mac stepped closer again.

“We have to be at Dee’s early tomorrow,” said Mac.

““I know,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes. “That bitch—”

“And I haven’t slept good in a couple nights, and we have community service again in the afternoon—”

“But we have stuff to do around here too, Mac,” said Dennis. He gestured vaguely around the kitchen. “We can’t just let the apartment go to shit because we’re busy.”

“It’s not shit,” said Mac. He nodded at the sink, currently overflowing with unwashed, used dishware. “It’s just a couple of bowls. Chores can wait…I’m tired…”

Dennis snorted.

“You know, you can just go to bed,” he said, “you don’t have to wait up for me.”

But Mac closed the last of the distance between them and Dennis settled instantly against his front, running his hands down Mac’s arms. Mac pouted at him for a long moment, until Dennis leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his lower lip.

Mac leaned after his mouth when Dennis eventually pulled away. He probably wanted to go back to washing dishes but Mac tightened his arms around Dennis’s waist, hugging him tighter, and tucked his head down on Dennis’s shoulder. He heard him sigh above him — but Mac closed his eyes, nestling in until his nose brushed Dennis’s neck, and at last he felt Dennis hum contentedly and wrap his arms around Mac too. A second later he felt Dennis’s chin settle on top of his head.

Mac pressed his fingers into Dennis’s sides, arms still wrapped around him.

“Your chin is really bony. It’s weird,” he complained.

Dennis snorted. He dug his chin further down into Mac’s scalp, even when he tried to turn his head the other way to escape it.

“Too fucking bad. You get what you get when you fall in love with me,” Dennis said.

Mac huffed. He inched his hands more fully around Dennis’s waist, making the circle he was enclosed inside a little smaller.

The kitchen floor was cold on Mac’s bare feet, but Dennis was very warm in his arms. The moment stretched on, and Mac started to get sleepy. The city noises outside their window kept going on and on, and the kitchen light began to flicker. One of the neighbors started playing music loud enough to hear through the walls. Drunk laughter filtered up from the street. And still Mac and Dennis stayed there, wrapped together in their apartment, their breathing synchronizing and their heartbeats slow, as the night around them stretched on and on and on and on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so much for reading along for this whole journey!!! i love all of you who made it this far to the end. and as always, you can find me gay and fighting for dumbass rights on main @ [lesbianfreyja](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/184297935565) ❤️


End file.
